By Daisy Ku
LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Transatlantic exchange group NYSE Euronext said it will move its European equity platform data centre to London from Paris in an attempt to better compete with new trading venues based in the UK capital.
NYSE Euronext said that to better serve the growing number of computer-driven high speed traders, which are mostly based in London, it was moving the data centre closer to its "algorithmic trading" clients, which will cut down on order transmission times.
High-speed traders already account for about half of the equity trading volume in Europe.
It takes the NYSE Euronext platform 4 milliseconds -- the time it takes a sound wave to travel 136 cm -- to transmit a trading order from London to Paris, while rival Chi-X says its multilateral trading facility can complete a transaction in half of that time.
The Paris operation has seen its share of France's CAC 40 trading volume fall below 60 percent from over 90 percent since the start of 2008, while Chi-X has been gaining market share from less than 10 to now over 20 percnet.
NYSE Euronext said its cash equity trading business would remain in France. (Editing by Karen Foster)