The London Stock Exchange, which put technology at the centre of its defence strategy while fending off five takeover bids, recorded a 76% rise in equity trading volumes last year following the introduction of a new system which slashed the speed of executing orders and boosted its ability to handle high volumes.

The LSE revealed today that the total number of UK order book contracts traded during last year was 134.2 million transactions, worth £2.0 trillion, compared with 76.2 million transactions traded in 2006 worth £1.4 trillion.