(Reuters) -Interactive Brokers Chairman Thomas Peterffy on Thursday said 24-hour trading has become more acceptable, calling it a genie that is hard to put back into the bottle, at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange & Trading Conference.

Global interest in the lucrative U.S. equity market has surged in recent years, driven by rising retail participation, prompting exchanges and financial firms to seek new methods to expand access, particularly by extending trading hours.

“24 hours’ trading is obviously very important to many people in the far Middle and near East, much more so than in the U.S. or even in Europe,” Peterffy said at the conference.

In May, about 2.2% of Interactive Brokers’ volume was done in overnight trading, Peterffy said, adding that he expects the number to rise to 25% to 30% in the next year.

Interactive Brokers launched overnight trading in November 2022, while exchanges like Nasdaq, Cboe Global Markets and Intercontinental Exchange, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange, have announced plans for extended trading hours.

Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities had flagged risks of 24-hour trading to the Securities and Exchange Commission in April, highlighting the need for a clear regulatory framework and market infrastructure to support its implementation.

(Reporting by Prakhar Srivastava, Arasu Kannagi Basil and Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)