Colt and Koscom, the leading financial IT provider in Korea founded by Korea’s Ministry of Finance and the Korea Stock Exchange, has announced a joint agreement to form a global securities network partnership that will provide ultra-low-latency connectivity between capital markets participants in Korea and the world’s major stock and derivatives exchanges.
As part of this collaboration, Koscom will use Colt’s extensive, high-quality and low-latency global network service infrastructure to complement its own exclusive financial network in Korea (“Stock-Net”). Both companies stand to benefit even further from this multi-year agreement by leveraging each other’s local and global network and exchange colocation footprints, as well as the respective sales and service operation resources in Korea and around the globe.
This arrangement will also create further opportunities to develop integrated financial IT and market data solutions for Korean capital markets in the future, including Colt Prizmnet, the financial extranet developed by Colt, and Koscom’s securities brokerage hub (“STP-Hub”).
The partnership is underpinned by technical and commercial support for mission-critical applications in multiple languages including English, Japanese and Korean. This will allow local brokerages and investors from foreign institutions to benefit from more reliable and cost-effective connectivity when trading at Korea Stock Exchange (KRX), one of the world’s top exchanges in terms of derivatives trading volume.
Elaborating on the agreement, Masato Hoshino, Vice President and Head of Product Management at Colt, said: “This partnership marks another important milestone for Colt and Koscom. It highlights the close working relationship we’ve cultivated between our organizations since the launch of the Busan Proximity Data Center in 2012. Furthermore, it opens an even wider path to future mutual growth for us, and more importantly, for investors looking to tap into the wealth of opportunities in the Korean capital markets ecosystem, especially considering that Colt is the only company to have established such an agreement with Koscom.”
Mr. Jae Wook Eom, Koscom’s Sales Division Head, said: “This global securities network partnership will enable Korean domestic securities and futures companies to leverage high-quality and low-cost infrastructure for offering their financial services to exchanges around the globe, including Japan, Southeast Asia, the U.S., and Europe. At the same time, international investors will also be able to reduce their costs when launching business initiatives in Korea. This will key in accelerating the globalization of Korean capital markets.”