TMX Group, the operator of Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange, has agreed to adopt IIROC’s proprietary market surveillance system, effective April 1, 2012.
IIROC will now provide all monitoring services to equity marketplaces in Canada using its Surveillance Technology Enhancement Platform (STEP), which was launched in 2010. Prior to that, IIROC used the TMX Group’s SMARS system to perform single-market surveillance for the two TMX Group exchanges.
The STEP system is currently used to perform single-market monitoring for Canada’s 11 equity marketplaces, as well as for monitoring of equity trading across multiple markets.
“Using a single surveillance system allows for enhanced quality of surveillance, as well as significant annual savings that will benefit all market participants—issuers, intermediaries and investors,” said Susan Wolburgh Jenah, IIROC’s president and CEO.
“This final stage of our implementation of STEP reflects IIROC’s response to the critical need for a comprehensive multi-market surveillance system to effectively and efficiently fulfill our regulatory mandate.”
STEP was created to keep up with the speed and volume of trading on modern electronic exchanges, and to deliver consolidated surveillance of multiple marketplaces. The system also allows the SRO to conduct detailed post-trade research to better analyze market developments in a rapidly evolving trading environment.
The transition is subject to the approval of the agreement by the Canadian Securities Administrators.