Citi is launching Citi Match, its internal dark liquidity pool, in Europe. The system has been live in the US for the past 18 months.
Citi Match combines all the pools of liquidity within Citi and grants the firm’s institutional clients access to a range of retail, institutional, principal and broker-dealer liquidity.
“Citi Match allows institutional investors to access all of Citi’s consolidated liquidity,” said Jack Vensel, managing director and head of electronic execution sales in EMEA at Citi. “Being able to pool liquidity from such varied sources is a real differentiator.”
Only institutional investors are permitted to rest orders in Citi Match. These orders will interact with incoming flow as they wait for a natural cross. “By allowing only institutional orders to rest on Citi Match, Citi is able to protect the anonymity and integrity of our clients’ orders,” added Vensel.
Citi’s algorithms have exclusive access to Citi Match. To maximise crossing opportunities, clients may opt to have their orders sent to other dark pools or lit venues in addition to Citi Match. According to Citi, the pool provides price improvement and trading without market impact. It also incorporates advanced anti-gaming technology for order protection.
Citi Match distinguishes between pass-through volume and resident liquidity. It considers orders from Citi’s retail broker-dealer clients and pinging orders as pass-through volume. Institutional orders, internal Citi trading desks and Citi-only algorithms are considered resident liquidity.
Initially, Citi Match will trade equity markets in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, UK, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. Additional EMEA markets will be available shortly.
In addition, Citi has announced that its Global Transaction Services (GTS) and Citi Global Markets (CGM) businesses are now providing clients with an integrated electronic execution and custody solution for most major equities markets, called Citi Execution to Custody.
The solution combines electronic execution and smart order routing to reach pockets of liquidity and achieve best execution, and uses GTS’s custody capabilities to reduce settlement costs, automate the settlement process, and provide full post-trade asset servicing.
According to Citi, the new solution improves fund performance for the buy-side by decreasing costs in the middle and back office. For the sell-side, it provides operational efficiency and reduces cost by using Citi’s global network and processing capabilities.