Sungard Expands Trade Execution And Clearing Services To Europe
Thursday, January 28, 2010

SunGard, a leading global software and IT services company, has launched an electronic agency broker-dealer based in the UK to serve the European markets.

SunGard is one of the first firms to offer sponsored access to European markets and will also provide high velocity direct market access, smart order routing, algorithms, and clearing and settlement services to high frequency trading firms and other market participants.

The European brokerage industry is characterized by continued liquidity fragmentation in the wake of MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive), and rising execution costs. SunGard says that its service will help customers reduce their overall trading and infrastructure costs and increase efficiency and transparency in the trading process.

SunGard already offers execution, risk management and clearing services to US trading participants.

“The European equity industry is at a turning point and firms are finding it harder to access fragmented liquidity in a cost-effective way,” said Sang Lee, a co-founder and managing partner at Aite Group, a financial markets research and advisory firm. “Firms will benefit from using a technology-neutral broker-dealer to gain access to the market more efficiently. Utilizing a single provider for their broker-dealer, execution and clearing and settlement needs helps firms increase transparency into the trade lifecycle and achieve economies of scale and scope.”

Raj Mahajan, president of SunGard’s trading business, said: “Expanding SunGard’s global trading services enhances SunGard’s global network, providing access to more markets. With our new broker-dealer in Europe, SunGard can provide US and European customers with one access point to nearly 100% of displayed liquidity. This will help customers achieve best execution at a reduced cost. Offering a global integrated trading platform and execution, risk, clearing and compliance services, SunGard is able to automate and streamline every point of the trade lifecycle, helping our customers increase revenues, improve processing efficiencies, manage risk and reduce costs.”