About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Colt Partners NPL to Deliver Time Service Suited to MiFID II

Subscribe to our newsletter

Colt Technology Services is offering financial firms using its colocation services a timestamping capability that more than meets the requirements of Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II).

The company has partnered with the UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to deliver precise timing capabilities to firms using its colocation services in Equinix data centres in Slough and Interxion facilities in London. This enables firms to timestamp all reportable trades to within one microsecond of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), significantly improving on the smallest 100 microsecond level stipulated by the RTS 25 timing regulation under MiFID II.

The Precision Time Protocol (PTP), based on the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) signal sourced directly from NPL, is being integrated by Colt at the network level, offering a consistent time across multiple trading applications. The company says the service introduced at Equinix and Interxion will be will be rolled out to other UK colocation sites according to customer demand.

Andrew Housden, vice president of capital markets at Colt, comments: “NPL has one of the world’s most accurate time signals, providing our financial markets customers with a highly reliable solution.” NPL’s CsF2 atomic clock is accurate to one second every 158 million years.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: Agility as Alpha: How Trading Infrastructure Determines Who Wins in Volatile Markets

Date: 21 May 2026 Time: 10:00am ET / 3:00pm London / 4:00pm CET Duration: 50 minutes Tariff shocks, geopolitical realignment and macroeconomic regime shifts are redrawing the investment landscape faster than most firms’ technology stacks can keep up. For hedge funds and asset managers, the ability to move quickly into new asset classes, geographies or...

BLOG

CFTC File Format Change to Impact Futures Data Management Teams

For futures commission merchants, clearing members, proprietary trading firms, and banks with material futures and options exposure, the transition of CFTC Part 17 Large Trader Reporting to FIX Markup Language (FIXML) is a test of data management maturity. This change directly affects firms responsible for aggregating, validating, and submitting large trader position data, often across...

EVENT

Buy AND Build: The Future of Capital Markets Technology

Buy AND Build: The Future of Capital Markets Technology London examines the latest changes and innovations in trading technology and explores how technology is being deployed to create an edge in sell side and buy side capital markets financial institutions.

GUIDE

Best Practice Client Onboarding

Client onboarding is central to the success of banks, yet it continues to present challenges and the benefits of getting it right are difficult to achieve. The challenges arise from siloed systems, manual processes and poor entity data quality. The potential benefits of successful implementation include excellent client experience, improved client acquisition and loyalty, new business opportunities, reductions in costs, competitive advantage, and confidence in compliance.