CME Announces Certified Options Partner Program - Twelve Firms To Provide Front-End Solutions For Options Trading

As part of its initiative for increasing the volume of electronic trading for options on foreign exchange, equity indexes and interest rates, CME, the largest futures exchange in the U.S., today announced the new CME-Certified Options Partner Program listed below. This program fosters collaboration between CME and the CME Options Program Partners so that enhanced CME Options products and functionality are available to the marketplace upon CME launch.

CME also plans to integrate the CME Enhanced Options System for CME Eurodollar options into the CME® Globex® electronic trading platform, which operates virtually 24 hours every trading day, later this year. This enhanced options functionality for CME Eurodollars facilitates trading of complex combination and spread trades typically used with short-term interest rate options on futures within a fully transparent and competitive execution environment.

“We work closely with key technology partners around the world to provide our global customers with access to software that supports new CME options products and functionality,” said Rick Redding, managing director, Products and Services for CME. “We developed the CME-Certified Options Partner Program to ensure that all required functionality is available for roll-out, to our mutual customers, starting in the third quarter of this year.

CME has partnered with the following firms who have committed to supporting the upcoming CME electronic options enhancements:

Actant*
Credit Suisse First Boston
Catus Technologies
FFastFill
GL TRADE*
NYFIX
Orc Software*
Prime Analytics*
RTS Realtime Systems*
Photon Trader
Random Walk Consulting
TradingScreen

*The following firms will provide the software to support mass quoting and enhanced market maker protection functionality: Actant, based in Zug, Switzerland; GL TRADE, based in Paris, France; Orc Software, based in Stockholm, Sweden; Prime Analytics, based in Chicago; and, RTS Real Time Systems, based in Frankfurt, Germany. For more information, please visit www.cme.com/optionspartners.