IIROC Extends Contract with Nasdaq SMARTS, Bolsters Surveillance Technology

TORONTO and NEW YORK, July 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and Nasdaq, Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ) have signed an agreement which extends the surveillance technology relationship between IIROC and Nasdaq's SMARTS. In this new phase, IIROC will increase its capabilities in advancing its cross-market, multi-asset surveillance across five stock exchanges and eight Equity Alternative Trading Systems.

"By allowing us to be more agile and flexible, the system will provide a solid foundation for the evolution of IIROC's market supervision in the years ahead and bring us one step closer to our vision of providing leading-edge market surveillance," said Victoria Pinnington, Senior Vice President, Market Regulation and Policy.  "This state-of-the art system offers new tools and approaches including machine learning that our team will leverage to more efficiently monitor for abusive behaviour."

"By supporting IIROC over the past several years in its rigorous efforts in monitoring and protecting Canada's markets, this has complemented Nasdaq's relentless commitment to leveraging technology to strengthen the integrity of the global capital markets," said Lars Ottersgård, Executive Vice President and Head of Market Technology, Nasdaq. "We look forward to continuing this successful partnership and working with our clients in maintaining a fair, transparent and safe global marketplace and ensuring that firms have the tools to do so as well."

SMARTS has been the industry benchmark for real-time, cross-market, cross-asset surveillance for 22+ years. Used by over 3500 compliance professionals around the world, SMARTS solutions currently power surveillance at 47 marketplaces, 17 regulators and 140+ market participants.

About IIROC

IIROC is the national self-regulatory organization which oversees all investment dealers and their trading activity in Canada's debt and equity markets. IIROC sets high quality regulatory and investment industry standards, protects investors and strengthens market integrity while supporting healthy Canadian capital markets. IIROC carries out its regulatory responsibilities through setting and enforcing rules regarding the proficiency, business and financial conduct of dealer firms and their registered employees and through setting and enforcing market integrity rules regarding trading activity on Canadian debt and equity marketplaces.

About Nasdaq
Nasdaq (Nasdaq:NDAQ) is a leading global provider of trading, clearing, exchange technology, listing, information and public company services. Through its diverse portfolio of solutions, Nasdaq enables customers to plan, optimize and execute their business vision with confidence, using proven technologies that provide transparency and insight for navigating today's global capital markets. As the creator of the world's first electronic stock market, its technology powers more than 89 marketplaces in 50 countries, and 1 in 10 of the world's securities transactions. Nasdaq is home to 3,800 total listings with a market value of $11 trillion. To learn more, visit:  http://business.nasdaq.com

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IIROC:

Paul Howard

phoward@iiroc.ca

416-646-7279

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