This proprietary smart router was created to manage optionsXpress customer's orders to ensure fast execution at the best available price. In its first month of use, optionsXpress customers already saw more than 15 percent of their eligible option orders receive price improvement.

"The XpressRouter was designed and created in-house at optionsXpress," stated Peter Bottini, Executive Vice President of Trading and Customer Service. "We looked at all the available third-party routers used by our competition and determined that we could develop a superior product internally."

The XpressRouter simultaneously monitors quotes from all U.S. option exchanges as well as querying alternate liquidity sources to find the best prices for our retail customer's market and marketable limit orders. The XpressRouter also facilitates moving orders from an exchange that experiences an outage to keep orders in the marketplace.

"With the introduction of our new proprietary XpressRouter, we're offering our customers a better investing experience and saving them money when their orders are price improved," stated David Fisher, Chief Executive Officer, optionsXpress Holdings, Inc. "This marks the latest in a series of updates to our award-winning brokerage platform. It also underscores optionsXpress' commitment to enhancing the trading experience of our more than 290,000 customers through consistent company-championed innovation and technology."