Having already established its Financial Services Network in the U.S., Verizon is extending its dedicated trading business infrastructure to European financial services firms.
Similar to its offering to the U.S. financial trading market, Verizon`s financial solution provides European-based brokers, hedge funds, exchange and post-trade services providers a fully managed interface to all elements of the financial ecosystem.
Chandan Sharma, global managing director of Verizon Business` financial services practice said what drove Verizon to bring this product set to Europe was a number of changes in the region`s financial regulatory infrastructure."Regulations like reg MNS (Regulation National Market System) that were promulgated many years ago in the U.S. that drove the fragmentation of the liquidity around trading to multiple venues are starting to happen in Europe," he said.
Sharma added that a big driver is to improve network performance. "Latency is becoming very mission critical and the trading volumes are growing because of high frequency trading and other algorithmic type trading strategies," Sharma said. "Taking it to the extreme from a latency perspective many trading companies are looking to collocate their trading infrastructure almost right next to exchanges matching engine in the same data center facility as part of this overall trading ecosystem."
To drive out network latency, Verizon`s Financial Services incorporates two mirrored networks with fully diverse circuits. Each of the mirrored Ethernet-based networks that run on protected transmission circuits with SLAs.
Customers that sign up for the service can opt for a straightforward managed network solution or they can have Verizon financial networking experts provide a more custom solution. Verizon will also provide 24x7 network monitoring and management.
Verizon`s financial sector drive reflects what has become an exploding opportunity lately for not only incumbent service providers but a host of competitive carriers (Intellifiber, Level 3, Optimum Lightpath, RCN Metro and XO Communications).
