Matching

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the rules for NYSE MatchPoint, a new, portfolio-based, point-in-time electronic facility of the New York Stock Exchange that matches aggregated orders at predetermined sessions throughout regular hours and after hours of the exchange.

NYFIX, an electronic trading solutions provider, and BNP Paribas Securities Services (BNP), a securities services provider to the financial services industry, announced on Monday a strategic agreement to offer pan-European post-trade services to NYFIX Euro Millennium users.

Exis Consulting, a provider of global debt market software solutions and services to financial institutions worldwide, announced on Tuesday the release of its TRAX2 software interface.

Calypso Technology, a provider of capital markets software, has launched a confirmation matching module that streamlines the payments workflow process by automatically matching incoming and outgoing SWIFT confirmation messages.

Omgeo, a post-trade, pre-settlement trade management services provider, announced last week that ABP Investments (ABP), a pension fund, has gone live on Omgeo central trade manager (Omgeo CTM).

Technology provider Orc Software is to provide BIDS Trading, the alternative trading system (ATS) designed to increase competition and liquidity in the U.S. equity block trading market, with its CameronFIX universal server for FIX order flow and connectivity, the firms announced last week.

Markit, a provider of independent data, portfolio valuations and OTC derivatives trade processing, has announced that Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers are the first dealers to sign up to its new electronic affirmation service which launched last Wednesday.

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) announced yesterday that buy-side firms can now use TRAX2 for repurchase agreements (repo). For the first time, both buy- and sell-side firms can match and report repo trades using the same system (www.TRAX2.org).

National Instrument 24-101, which commits all participants in the Canadian securities industry to same day trade matching, will become effective on 1 April 2007. However, the Canadian Capital Markets Association (CCMA) announced yesterday that exception reporting has been delayed until February 2008, instead of being introduced as planned in the fourth quarter of this year.

TABB Group in its newest research note, "Liquidity Management: Pushing Automated Trading Beyond Agency Brokerage," projects that over the next five years equity internalisation rates will shift with the amount of flow matched in dark books increasing. This will be caused by Reg NMS in the U.S. and MiFID in Europe, which will make it more challenging and risky to execute equities using more traditional internalisation techniques including block trading and capital commitment.