Fee/rebate contingent order matching system and method

A method for matching using at least a contingent order matching system (COMS), comprising:

• maintaining an inventory of electronic orders, including resting orders, on a storage register in a first format that is compliant with the COMS, wherein the resting orders are ranked according to a primary criteria comprising a price and a secondary criteria comprising one or more attributes other than price;
• receiving, over a network, buy orders and sell orders for a tradable interest in a second format that is only compliant for processing by an independent exchange system, at least some orders including fee/rebate contingency rate (FRC) information;
• and
• executing an order handling algorithm that converts the buy orders and the sell orders in the second format to the first format that is compliant with the COMS, thereby obviating a need for multiple exchange systems, including said independent exchange system, said executing comprising:
• validating the buy orders and the sell orders by determining whether any of the buy orders and the sell orders include requisite order information, to form one or more validated orders;
• electronically routing the one or more validated orders to a matching system;
• and
• matching, by a matching algorithm of the matching system, the one or more validated orders with one or more among the resting orders in the storage register, said matching according to a ranked priority which matches the resting orders first by the primary criteria and then by the secondary criteria, except when at least one resting order of the resting orders is determined to be unmatchable based on the FRC information, said at least one resting order, if matched yields priority to lower ranked resting orders in the storage register having a same primary criteria.