London Stock Exchange to ramp up electronic trading

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has celebrated the first anniversary of the launch of its electronic trading platform TradElect with promises of exponential increases in volumes over the next couple of years.

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The exchange said capacity on the platform has increased tenfold over the last 12 months and it has contributed to an 82 per cent growth in trading volumes on Sets (the Exchange's single platform for the trading of the constituents of the FTSE All Share Index, Exchange Traded Funds, Exchange Traded Commodities, along with more than 180 of the most traded AIM and Irish securities) in the last financial year.

The exchange expects the platform to reduce the time taken for each trade by 50 per cent to three milliseconds by October and double capacity to 10,000 continuous trades by September. This capacity will be doubled again by October.

In September, the platform will begin to offer trades in Italian equities, following the acquisition of the Borse Italia by the LSE in June 2007.

In a statement, LSE CIO David Lester said: "Since its launch, TradElect has delivered a stepchange in the trading capabilities to the London market and has set new benchmarks in terms of system capacity and performance."