Three Latin American Exchanges Choose FIX

The stock exchanges of Chile, Columbia and Peru have chosen the FIX Protocol to support the regional integration creating a link between the three exchanges, in a sign that the adoption

Through MILA (Mercado Integrado Latinoamericano) is a FIX based message routing network linking the three exchanges to their broker participants.

Through MILA traders on the Chile, Columbia and Peru exchanges can buy and sell shares listed on any of the three trading venues, forming a market with stock exchange capitalization of over U.S. $600 billion.

FIX is the language of the world’s financial markets and was developed originally to support buy-side to sell-side communication, According to Fix Protocol Limited, (FPL), the non-profit organization that owns the intellectual property rights to the protocol. It has gained significant interest from trading venues wishing to use it to connect to market participants, said FPL in today’s release.

In today’s release, Jitendra Puri, CIO of Bolsa de Valores de Colombia, one of FPL’s newest member firms in the region, comments, “Since FIX is the de facto standard in the capital markets industry, we adopted it in MILA for the following two reasons, first, to leverage global best practices while reducing the overall technical effort involved in an integration of such magnitude, and second, adhering to a widespread industry standard opens new business opportunities and facilitates a decrease in time to market of new products.” According to FPL, FIX adoption offers significant cost savings and efficiency gains by connecting firms to trading partners both domestically and across geographic borders in a standardized and cost‐effective manner by minimizing switching costs. Adoption of the FIX Protocol across Latin American has grown significantly, said FPL, as local member firms have collaborated to encourage the market to develop an understanding of how the global standard can support existing and emerging trading practices. By offering FIX connectivity, MILA makes it easier for overseas investors to invest in equities in three of the fastest growing Latin American economies.

Commenting on the growth of FIX in the region Edwin Montenegro, Co-Chair of the FPL Latin America Subcommittee, CEO and Founder of Extol stated “I am delighted with the growth in FIX adoption that we are now witnessing in Latin America and the many opportunities that its use is generating, it is helping to open up our markets, providing a standardized language that Latin America can use trade with the world.”

Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio