Instinet Europe has announced the latest in a series of liquidity streaming partnerships through a new agreement with pan-European liquidity provider, SSW Market Making.
The deal follows on from similar agreements for Instinet with Virtu Financial and Sun Trading (since acquired by Hudson River) that were implemented last year as the industry prepared for the implementation of the MiFID II regime.
The liquidity streaming relationship between Instinet and SSW Market Making will enable Instinet to provide incremental original liquidity across a broader range of stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including very illiquid symbols to its buy-side and sell-side clients.
The agreement is also aimed at providing clients with opportunities to interact on an anonymous basis with a new source of market maker liquidity, without having to establish separate bilateral connections: SSW Market Making will interact with Instinet as a known counterparty, as the liquidity provider can offer price improvements and larger sizes.
“By including liquidity from SSW, who actively trades in 4,500 stocks and 2,500 ETFs in Europe, Instinet can provide even more diverse liquidity to our buy side and sell side clients – especially in thinly traded and hard-to-trade names,” commented Ben Stephens, head of business development at Instinet Europe.
Instinet’s European CEO, Richard Parsons, discussed the firm’s partnerships with Virtu Financial and Sun Trading earlier this year.
“For us, the market structure changes were coming, and we’ve always had a strong background in liquidity aggregation and we knew that with the changes to dark pools and the closure of BCNs, that there would be new participants like systematic internalisers (SIs) emerging,” Parsons told The TRADE. “At Instinet the key was about giving our clients a choice.”