IPC Eyes Eastern Europe, Brazil

Trading telephony and network provider IPC is expanding its ECS Electronic Connectivity Service data network into emerging markets with connections to exchanges in Russia, Turkey and Brazil, as part of an ongoing geographic expansion of its financial network infrastructure.

IPC plans to make connectivity to data from the Istanbul Stock Exchange available via the ECS network by mid-June, with connectivity to exchanges in Russia planned to go live later this summer, though the build-out of IPC's network into Brazil is still in the early stages, and the vendor has not set a timeframe for connectivity to local exchange BM&F Bovespa.

Ganesh Iyer, senior manager of product marketing at IPC, says the decision to expand into these regions was based on growing client demand for connectivity to emerging markets.

Demand for these markets has come mainly from local traders, as well as traders in nearby regions, with London being the primary source of demand for connectivity to Russia and Turkey outside of Eastern Europe, while New York has been the main source of interest in the Brazilian market outside of Latin America, he adds.

The vendor is leveraging its existing network relationships from its trading turret and voice communications business to expand into these new markets, following the rapid expansion of its ECS network across Asia through the end of 2010 and beginning of this year, including connectivity to the Singapore Exchange and the Korea Exchange (IMD, Jan. 10; Feb. 14). As in Asia, IPC will use Synchronous Transport Module level-1 (STM-1) links to connect to markets in Eastern Europe and Brazil, providing bandwidth of 155 megabits per second.