Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME)'s intention to acquire Chicago Board of Trade (CBoT) could lead to smaller, niche ISVs suffering as they struggle to handle a multitude of contracts on a single marketplace. Others, however, have said their businesses would benefit from the increased number of users connecting to CME's Globex electronic trading platform through them.
Under the takeover agreement, the exchanges said that all contracts would trade on Globex, moving CBoT's existing contracts over from its Liffe Connect-powered E-CBoT trading system. One ISV said that the CME/CBoT and Deutsche Börse/New York Stock Exchange deals, the latter of which could lead to equities sharing the same platform as derivatives,...