The London Stock Exchange has completed the migration of Italian equities onto the TradElect platform, creating Europe's deepest pool of liquidity.
320 MTA stocks, and 40 stocks from Borsa Italiana's Expandi market commenced trading on TradElect on Monday.
Massimo Capuano, deputy chief executive of London Stock Exchange Group, says: "In creating Europe's largest pool of liquidity, we anticipate that the Group's network of 500 equity trading members will drive tighter spreads and a lower cost of capital, to the benefit of investors and companies."
In preparation for the launch, Italian customers have had access to test environments for the last five months. Following four weekend market-wide dress rehearsals, Italian market participants self-certified their readiness for yesterday's launch.
The other Italian markets currently hosted by the Affari platform will migrate onto TradElect in the first half of 2009.
The integration programme is believed to have been responsible for a major breakdown in the TradElect service in early September, after a minor weekend upgrade shut down trading for the best part of the day.
The TradElect system is currently being primed for a further upgrade that will reduce latency below the current benchmark of five milliseconds and further extend capacity on the platform.