New UK-based sell-side block trading venue Squawker has signed a deal for its technology infrastructure to be hosted and managed by BT Radianz Services, a unit of global telecoms provider BT.
The arrangement also means market participants will be able to access Squawker, via their membership of the BT Radianz Cloud, a secure networked financial community.
Squawker – which aims to provide a central trading venue for sell-side market participants to trade blocks of equity by negotiation in a secure, anonymous environment – is scheduled to go live in Q1 2013. Currently registered with the UK's Financial Services Authority as a brokerage, Squawker is expected to be regulated under MiFID II as an organised trading facility.
Christopher Gregory, co-founder and CEO, Squawker, estimates that 10-15% of pan-European equity trading is currently conducted in blocks over the counter. Likely participants include investment banks, market makers, agency brokers, proprietary and principal trading firms.
“Squawker will provide a new solution to the block trading challenge that the industry has been grappling with for a while. By collaborating with BT, we are able to ensure the highest-quality trading venue for our global clients, with easy access to our services via a proven, trusted and established provider,” he said.
Robin Farnan, MD, BT Radianz Services and BT Unified Trading, BT, said, “BT is absolutely committed to providing the highest quality of managed services, with all the stability, fault-tolerance, disaster recovery and continuity that is expected and required for today’s trading venues. The BT Radianz Cloud is rapidly becoming the industry standard, linking together the world’s major trading venues and financial institutions, and as such Squawker is an important addition to our cloud community.”