MillenniumIT's Gill Discusses Aequitas NEO Launch, What's Ahead

The project, from contract signing to yesterday's launch, took less than 12 months. Mack Gill, CEO of MillenniumIT, tells Sell-Side Technology that he's very excited for the launch, though not only because he was born in Canada and has some nationalistic pride attached to the Aequitas work's completion.

"It's not just a project," Gill says. "You don't often get the opportunity to build an entire exchange from scratch."

Aequitas will use a range of products provided through Millennium's MAP platform, including the Millennium Exchange trading platform, the Millennium SOR smart-order routing platform, Millennium MarketData and Millennium Surveillance products.

SOR & Matching Logic

Gill points to the smart-order routing logic as one of the key customized solutions specific to Aequitas' bold objectives around upending market structure.

"We were able to add a whole range of latency-management aspects to that, giving them the ability to manage latency arbitrage that market participants might be trying to do, but that the exchange doesn't want to support," he said.

MillenniumIT also worked with Aequitas to develop matching logic that would help the startup venue manage predatory behavior. "It's down to flexibility on the matching logic as well as on the order-routing side; those are the two main areas that we worked on most," when it comes to customized functionality, he says.

For MillenniumIT, the project also proved a valuable opportunity to build something from the ground up, rather than completing its typical role replacing a legacy system.

"This was a terrific opportunity to implement our full platform," Gill says. "Not all of our clients have will take all of its parts. So the ability to deliver and integrate that platform, a lot of which is out-of-the-box, and do so at a very competitive cost base, is something that has been a terrific opportunity for us. It's not just the cost of the software, but the operational footprint."

Listings Next

For the future, Millennium is now working with Aequitas to potentially launch listings capabilities later this year, while being mindful of global expansion down the road, Gill says.

"They're very ambitious," he says. "They eventually want to look beyond Canada, as well."