Turquoise trading platform goes live

Pan-European equity trading system launched today after months of delays

L’Huillier: Reliable IT is key to Turquoise's success

Bank-backed equities trading platform Turquoise went live today following months of delays.

First trades started going through the system at 8am this morning, though chief executive Eli Lederman told Reuters that members would "take a while to get comfortable" with the system and volumes will be small until the first clearing and settlement cycles are completed.

The pan-European equity trading facility was meant to launch in November but the live date was postponed to early 2008, reportedly because of complex contract negotiations with vendors working on the business's core platform.

The MiFID-compliant platform's offering consists of trading in just 10 stocks initially, split equally between the UK and Germany, but Turquoise expects the system to cover some 1,300 stocks across 13 European markets in the next few weeks.

"To achieve our goals we will have to assure the marketplace that the integrated trading platform is functionally reliable, robust and efficient and that it will perform to the highest standards," Yann L’Huillier, chief technology officer at Turquoise told Computing earlier this year.