Technology provider SunGard has launched an electronic agency broker for the European market.
The new broker, which is based in the UK, has been set up to serve two distinct client-types: high-frequency traders, which it will offer sponsored access to exchanges and high-speed direct market access (DMA); and regional agency brokers, which it will offer execution and liquidity services, including algorithms, smart order routing and clearing and settlement.
SunGard already operates an agency broker, Assent, in the US, which provides execution, risk management and clearing services to US trading participants.
SunGard launched the services for high-frequency traders in direct response to demands from US clients, according to Dave Mishoe, managing director, SunGard Trading.
“Because the markets are becoming more global and the European markets are beginning to fragment and look more like the US, US firms were expressing a desire to trade in different regions,” he told theTRADEnews.com. “At the same time we saw that electronic trading was proliferating throughout Europe as technology advancements were made and exchanges were able to keep up. The coincidence of these two trends made it the right time to invest in infrastructure and tools to provide the sponsored access service.”
SunGard launched the regional broker services because it saw firms struggling to reduce fixed IT and infrastructure costs at the same time as having to deal with increasing liquidity fragmentation across Europe. The services effectively offer regional brokers an outsourced exchange membership and the tools required to access multiple execution venues.
The bulk of the services are now available while the liquidity services for brokers, which comprise algorithms and smart order routing, while ready to be deployed now,
will be rolled out to clients as needed. “We will be putting various algorithms into production over time,” said Mishoe.
One service offered by SunGard’s US broker that the European business lacks is a dark pool. “We will be able to provide access to dark pools via DMA, but we want to make sure, given some of the regulatory ambiguity around dark pools in Europe, that we have a better understanding of where regulators are going to come down before offering our own,” said Mishoe.