The SWX Swiss Exchange and virt-x, its London-based electronic trading platform, announced plans for a significant upgrade to its trading technology just months ahead of new European rules aimed at promoting competition between the region’s exchanges.

The new system will offer 10 times the current capacity and 10 times the current level of speed in a bid to capture the growing percentage of trading conducted by electronic desk-top systems. The systems incorporate mathematical models that send instructions to buy and sell shares based on incremental movements in price.