Financial systems use precise time from GPS to time stamp transactions, ensure they are synchronized with market opening and closing, and to optimize their networks. Requirements for time trackability and precision are becoming stricter in both the United States and Europe, as have the demands of customers for accountability and impartial sequencing of trades.

The problem is that GPS signals are very weak and easy to disrupt. They have been disrupted by solar flares, malfunctioning electrical and electronic equipment, and poorly mounted TV antennas. Small illegal GPS jammers have become popular with privacy seekers and criminals, and U.S. adversaries are known to employ larger jammers that can deny GPS over very large areas.

In financial hubs such as downtown New York and Chicago, many financial services firms have established dedicated timing suites (clocks, fiber, dedicated circuits) to augment GPS signals for service areas in the vicinity of exchanges and trading houses.

Retail financial services across the country (consumer banking, credit cards, ATMs, etc.) rely upon the same network connections as other telecommunications and information technology services. These are dependent upon GPS signals for network synchronization, time stamping, etc.

The RNT Foundation is working to safeguard GPS services by advocating policies and systems to Protect, Toughen and Augment them.

Here are a few of the many resources we have available on this topic:

Financial Sector and Timing

Several workshops have been held at the New York Stock Exchange on the challenges and costs of bringing GPS signals deep into buildings in urban canyons and alternatives:

DHS and UrsaNav Successfully Demonstrate Timing Inside NYSE

Users Hazard Infrastructure with GPS Receiver Picks – Notes from ATIS Workshop