Alpha Trading Systems, the initiative of several bank-owned dealers to set up an alternative trading system, is moving ahead with new offices, a new identity, and a technology provider.

Set to launch its trading during the second half of 2008, Alpha Trading Systems moved into its permanent offices in Toronto this week, officially transitioning from the previous “Project Alpha” designation.

It also announced that it has hired Cinnober Financial Technology AB to supply the trading platform technology. Cinnober was also picked to provide technology to the similar European initiative, known as Project Turquoise.

Jos Schmitt, CEO of Alpha Trading Systems, stated that “The transition of Project Alpha to Alpha Trading Systems, the confirmation of our key technology partner, the successful completion of hiring the majority of our staff, and the occupancy of our new premises clearly speaks to our commitment to becoming a significant participant in the Canadian capital markets.”

Alpha Trading Systems was established in May with the aim of increasing the country’s equity trading efficiencies and making the Canadian marketplace more globally competitive. Its ownership group consists of BMO Capital Markets, Canaccord Capital Corporation, CIBC World Markets, CPP Investment Board, Desjardins Securities Inc., National Bank Financial, RBC Capital Markets, Scotia Capital Inc. and TD Securities Inc.

Cinnober provides advanced technology to financial marketplaces currently serving a number of leading markets with mission critical systems, including the American Stock Exchange, the BOAT Consortium, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Liffe NYSE Euronext, the London Metal Exchange and Borsa Italiana. Its products are highly customizable and based on TRADExpress, a scalable, Java based, high performance, low latency platform for transaction processing.

“The confirmation of this partnership represents another key step in the development of our alternative trading system” said Schmitt. “Cinnober’s state-of-the-art technology will provide Alpha with a highly advanced and flexible trading platform to deliver high velocity/low latency trading to the market.”

Alpha’s decision to partner with Cinnober has come at the completion of a thorough due diligence process whereby multiple different trading platforms were considered. “Multiple large scale production-like benchmarking exercises were performed that allowed to confirm that the platform behaves in line with today’s and tomorrow’s industry expectations”, continued Schmitt.

Jan Arpi, CEO of Stockholm-based Cinnober said, “The selection and benchmarking procedures for this assignment have been rigorous. We are delighted to be entrusted to participate in such an innovative project and now look forward to helping Alpha achieve its goals.”