The Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) is looking to expand its data commitments as a path for continued growth. The exchange announced in its Q2 earnings call that it had averaged a 16% year-over-year quarterly growth of its total Data and Access Solutions gross revenues since the second quarter of 2021.

Speaking on August 4, Cboe chairman and CEO Edward Tilly told shareholders that new opportunities within the company’s Data and Access Solutions group would drive further growth in the second half of the year. As an example, he cited customer demand for Australian equity market data now that Cboe Australia has migrated its exchange technology to Cboe’s uniform trading platform. But he also emphasized data as a major theme, and previewed the further development of Cboe’s exclusive data products as a path to growth. 

“As we continue to leverage our global footprint and expanded customer base, we also see opportunity to expand our reach of our proprietary data products, such as our Cboe One data feeds and Cboe Global Indices offering,” Tilly said.

By focusing on data and analytics to grow the business, Cboe is sticking with its core strengths. Last year, the world’s largest options exchange completed the integrations of five data-driven acquisitions, branding them under the new name Risk and Market Analytics, which sits under Cboe’s Data and Access Solutions group.

Among several data initiatives, some avenues for Cboe’s growth include data distribution-as-a-service with a quick-to-market contributor API, expanding Cboe One’s functionality, disseminating real-time cryptocurrency values, lower connectivity costs, and easing the ability for regional data vendors to redistribute Cboe’s data.

Dave Howson, executive vice president at Cboe, said in response to an analyst question that the Cboe Global Indices offering, which features more than 400 real-time indices, was performing well thanks to its partnership with Chicago-based data and investment research provider Morningstar.

“The feed began an exclusive distribution of Morningstar indices in this quarter and has seen some good enterprise sales. We’ve built out common APIs that allow us to onboard new datasets from new customers very quickly,” Howson said.

Tilly also confirmed that Cboe remains on track for the Cboe Japan technology migration as well as the expected launch of Cboe BIDS Japan in the fourth quarter of the year. By expanding the coverage of Cboe’s block trading business in the Asia-Pacific region, Tilly said that the BIDS network “will now extend to 7 of the top 10 global equity markets, creating a one-of-a-kind global equity block-trading network.”

In order to aid the company’s expansion into Asia-Pacific, Cboe launched a new London matching engine in Q2 for Cboe SEF, its swap execution facility.

“With Asia currency pairs accounting for a significant portion of Cboe SEF volumes, this new matching engine is expected to enhance our service to customers based in Asia and Europe, further diversify order flow on the platform and create greater matching opportunities for our clients,” Tilly said.