Euronext, Europe’s largest stock exchange, is reportedly considering moving its data center from the UK to Italy.
Waters Technology reports Euronext is considering moving its infrastructure for European stocks and listed derivatives trading from Basildon in the UK to Bergamo in Italy.
The London Stock Exchange is also reportedly planning to migrate from its current facility in the City of London to the Docklands in the east of the city.
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Stock Exchanges moving infrastructure
Euronext acquired Italian stock exchange Borsa Italiana Group in October 2020, and is analyzing the feasibility of transferring its data center to Italy by 2024, when its contract with the provider in Basildon expires.
In an earnings call last month, Euronext CFO Giorgio Modica said the company was doing “preparatory work” on basing all physical infrastructure of Euronext at the group level in Milan.
“We are exploring in a very detailed and precise manner, the migration of our data center, which is located today in London, which we want to migrate to Milan,” he said.
Risk.net reports one of the reasons for the move is high rent demands from the landlord, Ice Data Services. IDS’s Basildon facility has seven 1,000 square meter halls. Three halls are currently in operation, according to its website, with 1MW of power per hall, expandable to 3MW as required.
At the same time the London Stock Exchange (LSE) is also reportedly moving its data center, but will be remaining within the confines of London. LSE’s infrastructure is currently based at a fully owned and operated City of London data center which serves LSE, Turquoise, Turquoise Europe, and CurveGlobal trading venues, and offers hosting services.
But LSE is understood to be planning for a move to a new London data center at the Telehouse facility on the Isle of Dogs by 2022. Refinitiv, a provider of financial market data and infrastructure LSE acquired earlier in the year, is reported due to migrate the other way; leaving its Docklands Technical Centre in Poplar to the Cyxtera LHR1 data center in Slough.
Transaction tax in US could cause exchange exodus
Meanwhile, in the US, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are warning they will move out of New Jersey if the state implements a proposed tax on financial transactions.
The proposed bill would charge a quarter of a cent per financial transaction for entities in New Jersey that process at least 10,000 transactions annually via electronic infrastructure, but has apparently stalled in the wake of the threatened relocations.
NYSE has already conducted tests to show the feasibility of moving operations out of the state. The state of Illinois has reportedly been in touch with the NYSE about expanding secondary data center location into its primary facility if the tax bill passes.
“From Sept. 28 to Oct. 2, we moved our production servers for our NYSE Chicago exchange out of New Jersey to our secondary data center,” said Hope Jarkowski, co-head of government affairs for the NYSE. “Proximity to New York City is no longer relevant in today’s trading environment.”
The Nasdaq stock exchange is also being courted by Texas, with Governor Greg Abbott tweeting he has been in touch with the exchange about moving operations to the state from its current facility in New Jersey. Virginia, North Carolina and Illinois have also reportedly had discussions with Nasdaq.
