Hotspot, a leading institutional foreign exchange (FX) market owned and operated by BATS Global Markets (BATS), launched its new London-area matching engine on 14 September, with USD1.2 billion traded (single-count) in the first full week of operation.

The new venue will target Europe and Asia and specific FX currency pairs that dominate the European and Asian trading hours. To incentivise customers, all trading for all transactions that take place on the London matching engine will be free until the end of the year.

Chris Concannon, BATS CEO, says: “Exactly six months after acquiring Hotspot, we have demonstrated our commitment to injecting very real competition into the FX trading market by opening the London matching engine. In the same way we disrupted European equities trading when we launched in the region in 2008, we plan to permanently change the landscape of the FX market. We are only at the start of this campaign, and customers are already responding very well.

“That we can launch an entirely new venue in such a short timeframe speaks to the incredible strength of our global technology team under Chris Isaacson, our global CIO. His teams continue to set the bar for operational excellence and efficiency in all the markets we touch.”

Hotspot will continue to operate its matching engine in the New York area, which is scheduled to migrate from its current site in Jersey City, New Jersey to the Equinix NY5 data centre in Secaucus, New Jersey on 9 November 2015.