Nexa Technologies Inc. today announced it is the first firm certified to provide direct market access connectivity to the Montreal Exchange.

The firm says that this will enable its institutional brokerage, hedge fund, proprietary trading firm and retail trading global client base to trade Canadian options on the MX without incurring the inflated, third party connectivity fees.

“By embracing MX’s FIX interface to provide DMA through our own connectivity layer, Nexa is able to offer trade execution on the MX at significantly reduced costs,” said Mark Munoz, senior vice president of corporate development, in a news release. “In contrast to alternative solutions on the market, we provide our customers with the ability to trade under their own ID and establish a relationship with the MX. We also empower the customer to select technology solutions, back office processing services and suppliers according to individual requirements.”

“The widespread acceptance of industry standards such as FIX is a key factor to a number of market changes. By developing our own interface, we are encouraging firms who are interested in trading Canadian options to enter the market or increase their participation for the benefit of the financial services community worldwide,” said Mark Bourcier, implementation coordinator at the MX. “We have been impressed with the speed with which Nexa has completed its connectivity with our FIX interface and welcome the business it will bring.”

Nexa says its commitment to this project with the MX further underlines its ongoing commitment to improve the trading environment for its global customer base through close partnership with the world’s exchanges, markets and ECNs. Eric Stoop, Nexa’s president, said, “Flexibility is key to the success of our growing customer base. Nexa’s leading edge direct access suite of trading solutions, combined with our industry partnerships, provide flexibility from basic execution interfaces to complete STP solutions. This latest development adds a new dimension to our connectivity capabilities for both buy and sell side clients.”