TMX Atrium has signed an agreement with the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to distribute NPL Time, a certified and precise time signal that is directly traceable to Coordinated Universal Time and can be used by TMX Atrium customers for regulatory compliance and audit purposes.
TMX Atrium’s adoption of the NPL Time service is designed to meet increasing regulatory demand for time stamp accuracy and allows customers to receive a time signal that is independent of the global positioning system and cannot be disrupted by outside interference. The time stamp is provided at the distribution point and is certified by NPL and compliant with the Finra Oats 7430 timing traceability requirement. NPL certification removes the need for time synchronisation between various locations in the trading infrastructure, reducing the complexity of time management.
NPL Time is initially available on the TMX Atrium network in the UK and will later be offered across the network in Europe and North America.
Leon Lobo, strategic business development, Time and Frequency, at NPL, says: “NPL Time is an extension of many decades of time dissemination expertise. By providing NPL Time over the TMX Atrium network, the financial industry stands to benefit from NPL’s capability to ensure that time-stamped trades can be traced to Coordinated Universal Time.”
NPL, the UK’s National Measurement Institute, operates one of the world’s most accurate atomic clicks, NPL Csf2, which is accurate to one second every 158 million years. It is developing the next generation of optical atomic clocks, which will be accurate to one second in 14 billion years.
