Europe

European tick sizes: a compromise too far?

While the industry has largely applauded last week’s agreement between exchanges, multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) and brokers to harmonise tick sizes across Europe, many acknowledge it is only a first step, and more effort is needed to create true unity.

Spanish exchange becomes fully electronic

Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME), the Spanish stock exchange, has announced that it will transfer the remaining shares traded by open outcry to an electronic system.

MoUs to put T2S on track despite BoE – ECB

Central securities depositories (CSDs) from 21 European countries will indicate their commitment to the European Central Bank’s TARGET2-Securities (T2S) centralised settlement infrastructure next week, according to Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, a member of the bank’s executive board.

Investit releases new buy-side benchmarking tool

Investment management consultancy Investit has released a new integrated benchmarking tool to allow asset management firms to compare their processes with their peers and industry best practice.

Pipeline appoints senior European salesperson

Pipeline Financial Group, an operator of equity block trading venues in the US and Europe, has appointed Richard Gray as senior salesperson for its European operations as it moves ahead with its launch schedule in the region.

Liquidnet Europe’s traded value up 30% in Q2

Buy-side dark crossing network Liquidnet’s total principal traded in Europe in Q2 2009 was £13.38 billion, a 30% increase over Q1 and a 21% year-on-year rise. The figure equates to an average daily principal traded of £219.3 million.

Nasdaq MTF to launch dark routing, employ EBBO

Nasdaq OMX Europe, a multilateral trading facility (MTF) for European equities, has announced enhancements to its order routing functionality and dark pool.

MTFs change tick sizes in response to FESE agreement

Multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) Chi-X Europe and Burgundy will change tick sizes for certain indices following last week’s agreement between the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE), the London Investment Banking Association (LIBA) and four MTFs to harmonise tick sizes across Europe.

ITG adds MTFs to European TCA offering

Agency broker and trading technology provider ITG will now base its European transaction cost analysis (TCA) service on consolidated data from both primary exchanges and multilateral trading facilities (MTFs).