LME plans to replace LMEselect with HKEX Orion trading platform

By Tom Daly and Mai Nguyen

(Reuters) -London Metal Exchange plans to replace its LMEselect trading system with its owner Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing’s Orion platform, CEO Matt Chamberlain said on Tuesday.

LMEselect is an electronic member-to-member trading system.

“We have already deployed our new multi-cast market data system LME Source, which is based on HKEX’s highly successful Orion market data platform,” Chamberlain said at an online metals seminar.

This “has been very strongly welcomed by traders on our market who feel that it gives a lower latency and fairer approach to the distribution of market data,” he said.

Chamberlain added that the LME was now working on an “even more ambitious goal”, the replacement of LMEselect with HKEX Orion trading platform, which has been successfully used in Hong Kong Exchange’s cash equities market.

He did not give a timeline for the switch to Orion but said this was a “significant undertaking” and the bourse would “take the time to get it right”.

Later this year the LME plans to launch its LMEpassport, a digital register that allows voluntary metal information to be recorded and shared.

(Reporting by Tom Daly, Mai Nguyen and Pratima Desai; writing by Shivani Singh; editing by Louise Heavens and Jason Neely)