Trading technology provider, Fidessa Group Plc on Monday has announced a partnership with Virtu Financial, to connect with Virtu’s Systematic Internaliser’s (SIs) customisable liquidity to Fidessa’s market access solutions. Virtu is a leading financial firm that leverages on cutting-edge technology to deliver liquidity to the global market.
The partnership will enable Fidessa’s clients to access to Virtu’s fully transparent and disclosed liquidity, together with improved upstream workflow to manage more complex trading environment most brokers find themselves in on the wake of stricter MiFID-II regulations.
The Systematic Internalisers (SIs) was initially included in the first version of the MiFID regulation but under MiFID II, the scope of SIs has been further expanded to investment firms which deal on their own accounts by executing client orders outside the trading venues. Under the updated regulatory guidelines, it wants to capture more off-exchange trading activities and increase transparency in OTC markets.
Virtu’s customizable SIs is integrated to Fidessa’s smart routing capabilities and market access that provides liquidity to the additional trading venues alongside traditional sources of liquidity. Also, Fidessa’s advanced order handling capabilities allows users to efficiently manage all their order flow across lit venues, SI operators, and the new Large in Scale dark pools that have emerged in the wake MiFID II regulation. As shown by Fidessa Fragulator, the level of SI activity has seen a rise after MiFID II regulations came into effect indicating industry’s focus on transparency and efficiency.
James Blackburn, Global Head of Equities Product Marketing at Fidessa said: “MiFID II is reshaping the liquidity landscape as trading migrates to more transparent and disclosed SIs and away from broker crossing networks and dark pools. At the same time, the focus on best execution has never been greater and now extends formally to the buy-side as well.”
Christiaan Scholtes, Head of EMEA Markets at Virtu, said: “As a leading equities and ETP market maker, we are pleased to be working directly with one of the premier technology providers in the industry and believe that this level of collaboration is helping to build the platforms of the future and drive efficient access to competitive liquidity.”
