Turquoise, a pan-European multilateral trading facility (MTF), has chosen banking group Citi’s Global Transaction Services unit as a general clearing member and settlement agent for trades executed on its new TQ Channel dark liquidity aggregation platform.
Since August 2008, Citi has been a general clearing member of and settlement agent to EuroCCP, which provides clearing, settlement and risk management services to Turquoise. The MTF received approval for TQ Channel from the UK Financial Services Authority in May, and expects to launch the service in early July.
Meanwhile, Dutch bank KAS BANK has started providing clearing and settlement services to clients trading on pan-European trading platform Equiduct in its capacity as a general clearing member of LCH.Clearnet SA and LCH.Clearnet Ltd, both of which clear trades on Equiduct.
KAS Bank has added Equiduct to its clearing and settlement platform, which processes client transactions on a uniform basis, with a single collateral and margin arrangement for all markets. The announcement means KAS is now connected to seven European alternative trading platforms and 18 regulated exchanges.
Turquoise, which formally launched in September 2008, offers trading in 1,700 stocks across 15 European markets through an integrated lit and dark order book. Equiduct, which operates under parent company Börse Berlin’s licence as a regulated market, launched in March and currently offers trading in Belgian, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese and UK stocks.