Electronic Liquidity Exchange, the upstart US futures exchange, may have moved one step closer to breaking the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s monopoly on US Treasury futures by signing a deal with a systems vendor to connect it to traders across four continents.

ELX, previously dubbed the “Four Seasons Exchange”, has signed up the trading system vendor Realtime Systems Group, a move that will link traders, including hedge funds, investment firms, banks and brokers, to the new derivatives bourse.