BSE launches equity trading on Bolt Plus platform

Premier stock exchange BSE Ltd on Monday launched its equity trading on the Bolt Plus platform and is hopeful that the traders who left the exchange in 1994 in search of faster trading platform will come back.

"We have launched equity cash segment for trading on our Bolt Plus platform today. We have already launched currency Futures & Options in November 2013, interest rates futures in January and equity derivatives on February 7 this year on Bolt Plus Live platform," Bombay Stock Exchange CEO and MD Ashish Chauhan said.

There was a minor glitch of four minutes, when the system migrated to new platform in early trade today, BSE sources said.

The exchange upgraded its technology platform in November 2013 to BOLT+. The BSE trading system (Bolt Plus) is based on T7, the global trading architecture of Deutsche Bourse AG.

One of the key features of the system is its response time of approximately 200 micro seconds, making it the fastest trading platform in the country on Monday.

BSE's new technology, which is open source and low cost, currently offers an order execution speed of 200 microseconds and can handle 5 lakh orders per second.

Going forward, BSE intends to increase the speed further to 20 microseconds by 2016 with an order taking capacity of 50 lakh orders per second," a source familiar with the new platform said.

By aligning BSE, Eurex Exchange and ISE markets on a common trading infrastructure, costs for shared customers will reduce significantly, Chauhan said.

Since 1994 to 2014, NSE had a technology edge over the BSE but for the first time the exchange has offered a trading speed which is several times faster than the rival exchange and can be scaled up to 100 times in three years from now.

Many stockbrokers attribute the recent success in BSE's currency derivative platform to its new trading technology, which gives a round-trip latency -- time between order entry and confirmation -- of less than 200 microseconds.

In the last few months, BSE has gained considerable market share in its derivatives segment and has been ranked fourth largest exchange in derivatives trading across the world by World Federation of Exchanges.