Société Générale opens up to European dark pools

French banking group Société Générale's Corporate and Investment Banking unit is expanding its electronic trading service with the addition of a new liquidity-seeking feature to its Quantitative Electronic Services division.
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French banking group Société Générale’s Corporate and Investment Banking unit is expanding its electronic trading service with the addition of a new liquidity-seeking feature to its Quantitative Electronic Services (QES) division.

The new feature, Block Cross, will be integrated into the QES Eclipse liquidity-seeking algorithm, affording clients access to Société Générale”s Alpha-x Europe crossing network and dark European multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) Chi-Delta and Turquoise Dark.

Alpha-x Europe is designed to match clients' buy and sell orders on a particular

stock through an integrated electronic execution platform. It aims to provide institutional clients with an alternative execution platform that gives them direct control over their access to liquidity, while still maintaining confidentiality of their orders.

According to Stephane Loiseau, managing director, deputy global head of execution services at Société Générale, dark venues, especially those run by MTFs and exchange groups have experienced significant growth over the last six months, leading to greater buy-side demand for access to these sources of liquidity.

Block Cross targets different venues, deciding based on the information available whether to place shares with Alpha-x Europe, or the dark pools Chi-Delta and Turquoise.

“At the moment, Block Cross chooses between these three venues. We are considering adding more, as they become available and worthwhile. We are considering adding SmartPool at the end of this month,” said Loiseau. “Using the algo, the buy-side has a tool that helps them understand the available liquidity on different venues. It also provides an easy way to experiment with these dark venues, to gain access to them in a safe, controlled way.”

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