SunGard, a global technology vendor, has launched an equities crossing network for US clients of its various trading solutions.
Assent ATS will aggregate US equity trade flow from users of Sungard’s Assent, Brass and GL trading solutions, combining retail, institutional and high-frequency liquidity, and provide customers an opportunity to fill an order before routing out to trading venues. Sungard’s customers can use the Assent smart order router to participate in additional displayed and non-displayed markets.
According to SunGard, the Assent ATS will enable clients benefit from the high volume of internal flow processed through its trading solutions, improve fill rates, reduce transaction costs and achieve faster trade execution with minimal market impact.
“With Assent ATS we are expanding into the execution space to help our customers improve their access to liquidity and achieve best execution, said Raj Mahajan, president of SunGard’s trading business, in a statement. “SunGard’s trading solutions help customers reduce costs while generating revenue by automating and streamlining every point of the trade lifecycle.”
“Accessing only one dark pool with one type of order flow is no longer sufficient,” added Larry Tabb, founder and chief executive officer of consultancy firm TABB Group. “The goal in executing against dark liquidity is to intercept order flow where it first enters into the execution stream. Firms will benefit most from dark pools with diverse unique liquidity, access to other dark and displayed markets, a mechanism that facilitates price improvement and technology that limits any if not all information leakage.”
Sungard’s Assent Liquidity Services suite of products includes algorithms, sponsored access, smart order routing and dark liquidity aggregation. Brass is Sungard’s order management system. Sungard’s GL suite, which includes the GL Net direct market access network and the GL EMS execution management system, was acquired when the firm bought trading technology provider GL TRADE in November 2008.