Global Stock Market Indices
A pedestrian, holding his mobile phone, walks past an electronic board showing the stock market indices of various countries outside a brokerage in Tokyo August 6, 2014. Reuters/Yuya Shino

Telecom giant Telstra opened a data centre at the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) that would connect financial centres. The Australian Liquidity Centre (ALC) was built mainly to make available fast and reliable connectivity to other major financial centres.

Located 5 kilometres north of Sydney's Central Business District, the ALC offers tailored hosting, co-location, connectivity and first-class data solutions.

The ALC's Point of Presence (PoP) would help address client demand for enhanced market data and low latency solutions while accessing the marketplace in Australia, said Mathew Lempriere, financial services market head of Telstra.

He said, quoted by ITwire, "Financial institutions are increasingly facing diverse challenges relating to speed, resilience and integrity of data. At the same time they are looking for higher bandwidth and reliable low latency connectivity, to drive agility and flexibility in existing and emerging markets."

He said the new PoP, plus the telco's network, provides the ALC with the ability to provide consistent server experience as well as a one-stop-shop for clients' low latency global connectivity needs. Lempriere added that it would also allow its clients to mitigate risks and scale quickly to address the changing demands of business and bandwidths, at the same time taking advantage of growth opportunities in the Asia Pacific region.

With more than 100 financial markets customers, ALC has become the hub of Australia's financial market, thanks to the global platform from Telstra, said ASC Trading Services General Manager David Raper, who added that the arrangement is an indicator of the growing demand for international low latency connectivity to the ASX.

Telstra provides a comprehensive Service Level Agreements backup to the new low latency connectivity, which allows delays not noticed by humans between the input being processed and the corresponding output that provides real time characteristics. Low latency is particularly vital for Internet connections like trading, online gambling and VOIP.

Lampriere said the service is highly scalable and easily handles fast-changing bandwidth demands usually common among low latency financial trading and cloud-based services.

He added, "It also offers customers single point accountability and responsibility, as well as access to diagnostic capabilities, and builds on the momentum of previous PoP placements in both the Singapore Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2013."

With electronic trading now comprising 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the daily volume on the New York Stock Exchange, trading has reached the point where millisecond improvements in network speed provides competitive advantage to financial institutions such as the bourses and brokers.