For further information, please contact:
Connie Craddock
Vice President, Public Affairs
416.943.5870 or ccraddock@iiroc.ca
IIROC launches enhanced surveillance
system for equity trading in Canada
September 29, 2010 (Toronto, ON) –The Investment Industry Regulatory Organization
of Canada (IIROC) has launched an advanced single-window surveillance system for all equity
markets in Canada. IIROC is responsible for regulating trading on all Canadian equity
marketplaces to ensure compliance with the Universal Market Integrity Rules. The Surveillance
Technology Enhancement Platform, known as STEP, gives IIROC the ability to conduct crossmarket surveillance that keeps pace with the dramatic growth in the speed and volume of
trading in Canada’s equity markets.
“In fulfilling our market surveillance responsibilities in a multi-market environment, we face
the challenges of higher volumes, faster trading, new trading strategies and order types and
more complex technologies,” said Susan Wolburgh Jenah, IIROC’s President and CEO. “The
new STEP system consolidates regulatory feeds from all marketplaces, providing a centralized
view of trading activity on the three exchanges and six Alternative Trading Systems currently
operating in Canada. The STEP system will allow us to conduct more effective cross-market
surveillance and analysis.”
The STEP platform is directly managed and maintained by IIROC, giving IIROC more flexibility
to respond more quickly and cost-effectively to changing market conditions and structure.
STEP is a customized version of the SMARTS Integrity Platform, which has been developed for
the Canadian market. SMARTS technology has been adapted and implemented by more than
40 exchanges and regulators worldwide.
The new technology is adaptable and will allow for continuous development of new
functionality. STEP can currently process up to 400 million trades, orders, quotes and
cancellation messages per day and is scalable to meet the anticipated growth in the volume of
trades and messages.
IIROC continues to use the surveillance system licensed from TSX Inc. to generate singlemarket alerts for Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange. All single-market alerts
for the other regulated marketplaces in Canada are now handled by the STEP platform.
IIROC currently monitors, on average, approximately 800,000 trades and 180 million
messages daily.
STEP Backgrounder available at www.iiroc.ca.
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IIROC is the national self-regulatory organization which oversees all investment dealers and
trading activity on debt and equity marketplaces in Canada. Created in 2008 through the
consolidation of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada and Market Regulation Services
Inc., IIROC sets high quality regulatory and investment industry standards, protects investors
and strengthens market integrity while maintaining efficient and competitive capital markets.
IIROC carries out its regulatory responsibilities through setting and enforcing rules regarding
the proficiency, business and financial conduct of dealer firms and their registered employees
and through setting and enforcing market integrity rules regarding trading activity on
Canadian equity marketplaces.
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