CME joins startup revolution with FinTech Sandbox partnership

North American multinational derivatives marketplace CME Group Inc (NASDAQ:CME) and FinTech Sandbox, a nonprofit whose mission is to promote entrepreneurship and innovation globally in the financial technology sector, today announced a new data agreement.

CME Group will provide FinTech Sandbox startups with free access to historical futures and options data to promote technological innovation that will benefit the industry.

Craig Mohan, CME Group Managing Director of Market Technology and Data Services today stated

“We formed this agreement with FinTech Sandbox because we strongly believe in supporting entrepreneurs in the global FinTech community. The futures industry was built on innovation and we are excited to help startups make advancements in areas that will positively impact our customers.”

“Access to the kind of deep, quality data that CME Group is making available gives startups in our program a tremendous leg up in identifying problems to solve and in building products to the robust standards of large financial institutions,” said Jean Donnelly, Executive Director of FinTech Sandbox.

For quite some time, the large, technology-led venues of Chicago have championed developement of leading-edge systems, mostly doing so by using propretary solutions. ICE and CME have moved away from the traditional style of trading venue and are now not just executing venues but institutional technology innovators, and this move highlights an increasing interest by such large companies in stoking new enterprises that can contribute toward innovation.

The six-month program includes a robust set of data feeds and APIs from a wide array of data partners, cloud hosting from industry-leading infrastructure partners and membership in a vibrant, global FinTech community.