Investment bank Nomura’s internal dark pool, NX, has gone live as a multilateral trading facility (MTF) and connected to Credit Suisse’s Advanced Execution Services (AES) division. NX, the first broker dark pool to be converted into an MTF, started trading in stocks across 14 markets as scheduled on 25 January.
NX MTF’s daily volume on 29 January reached $106 million (€76.4 million), according to Nomura, giving it 11% of disclosed pan-European dark liquidity and making the platform the third-largest dark European MTF among those that publicly disclose their volumes.
Nomura also revealed that NX MTF was the fifth-largest dark MTF for UK stocks, the third-largest for Euronext markets and the largest for Spanish equities.
The link to Credit Suisse is the first new connection NX has established since becoming an MTF. The platform is already connected to agency brokers Instinet Europe and ITG as well as TQ Lens, the dark liquidity aggregation service offered by fellow MTF Turquoise – now part of the London Stock Exchange Group.
Nomura is now working to grant a number of institutions access to NX MTF, and expects to announce additional connections over the coming weeks.
As an MTF, NX is now regulated directly by the UK Financial Services Authority and publishes post-trade prints to trade reporting facility Markit BOAT immediately after execution.
NX MTF’s post-trade data is available from providers such as Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg, analytics tools such as Nomura’s TradeSpex Liquidity Monitor, and market share tools such as Fidessa’s Fragulator and Thomson Reuters’ European Market Share Reporter.
The platform offers access to natural liquidity from Nomura’s equity franchise as opposed to external electronic liquidity providers.
“Our trading volumes across Europe validate Nomura’s decision to register its dark pool as an MTF and provide the market with additional liquidity and transparency,” said Andrew Bowley, head of electronic trading product management, EMEA, Nomura, in a statement. “We are able to show the market key activity in terms of liquidity both at the individual stock level as well as across Europe.”
Nomura first announced its intention to register NX as an MTF in December. While its decision came amid complaints about broker dark pools’ relative lack of regulation compared with exchanges and MTFs, in particular from the Federation of European Securities Exchanges, Nomura said its move was commercially driven.
“Having MTF status allows us to interact more cleanly with other dark pools and expand our own pool of liquidity with flow from other market participants,” Adam Toms, head of the market access group at Nomura, told theTRADEnews.com at the time.