BetterMarkets Ltd. announced the success of the first real-timesimulation of its Internet-based trading platform, which will pavethe way for a global border-less exchange, said company founderDavid Rudd. “We expect this platform to revolutionize the wayforwards and other financial instruments are traded. It will makegeography irrelevant and allow trading on a 24-hour-a-day basis.”

The trading platform, VoltZ, was created by Toronto-basedBetterMarkets to handle the heavy trading anticipated whenOntario’s electricity market opens this fall. BetterMarkets hostedmunicipal electric utilities, generators, wholesalers and industryconsultants for a real-time, online stress test to demonstrate thecapability of VoltZ in handling the demands of high-volume trading.Participants bought and sold simulated blocks of power to test thetrading system. Thousands of province-wide trades were occurringeach hour, all taking less than 1/8 of a second. With VoltZ, when abid or offer is accepted, the trader instantly receivesconfirmation of the trade including the name of the counter party,the price and the size of the trade.

The technology will initially be used for trading in Ontario’selectricity market and is transferable to other business sectors.It’s adaptable to financial and commodity markets and givesCanadian buyers and sellers global access. A key feature of theBetterMarkets platform is the market transparency made possible bythe technology. All transactions are in the public realm and inreal time so anyone will be able to see blocks of power beingbought and sold.

“Transparency is key to an efficient market and this is thefirst truly transparent trading system we’ve seen in NorthAmerica,” said Luis Seco, director of The Ontario Centre for EnergyFinance. “This will help us greatly in the development of riskmanagement products for Ontario’s electricity industry.”

BetterMarkets Ltd. is a privately owned online commodity tradingcenter, originally founded as MyBroker.com. BetterMarkets combinesthe strength of some of Canada’s leading risk management expertsthrough an affiliation with The Fields Institute for Research inMathematical Sciences, with an Internet trading model that allowsenergy users and producers to trade commodities in a real-time,high-speed, secure environment.

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