And then there were three….
The U.S. equity markets self-regulatory organizations have created a short list of three finalist firms who will build the much anticipated stock market consolidated audit trail. The shortened the list, down from six firms in July and the original ten now, are vying for the construction and maintenance of the system designed to provide and track equity market information.
The three remaining bidders are listed below in alphabetical order:
FINRA
SunGard
Thesys
“This is an important step in deciding who will ultimately build and maintain the CAT,” said Peter Santori, executive vice president of Chicago Stock Exchange, Inc., speaking on behalf of the SROs, in a release. “We are committed to delivering an effective solution for regulatory oversight and continue to diligently collaborate on this important initiative.”
SROs affiliated with a bid were recused from voting pursuant to the CAT Selection Plan Amendment approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Rule 613, adopted by the SEC in July 2012, requires the national securities exchanges and FINRA to submit to the SEC a NMS Plan (CAT NMS Plan) to create, implement, and maintain the CAT.
The CAT will be an audit trail that will allow regulators to more efficiently and accurately track activity in NMS securities throughout the U.S. markets. The purpose of the CAT NMS Plan is to create a central repository for the SROs and the SEC to perform surveillance on order event data, linked to customer and account information, and to permit regulators to efficiently and effectively perform market reconstructions. When complete, the CAT will be the world’s largest data repository for securities transactions tracking approximately 58 billion records of orders, executions, and quote life-cycles for equities and options markets on a daily basis.
The SROs are in the process of jointly developing the CAT NMS Plan pursuant to Rule 613. Additional information about the CAT NMS Plan can be found at www.catnmsplan.com.
CAT NMS PLAN PARTICIPANTS:
BATS Exchange, Inc. BATS Y-Exchange, Inc.
BOX Options Exchange, LLC
Chicago Board Options Exchange, Incorporated,
C2 Options Exchange, Incorporated
Chicago Stock Exchange, Inc. EDGA Exchange, Inc.
EDGX Exchange, Inc.
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. International Securities Exchange, LLC
ISE Gemini, LLC
Miami International Securities Exchange LLC The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC
NASDAQ OMX BX, Inc. NASDAQ OMX PHLX LLC
National Stock Exchange, Inc. NYSE Group, Inc.
NYSE MKT, LLC
NYSE Arca, Inc.
