Several large sell-side firms have officially gone live with Bats Europe’s block trading platform, as the exchange operator reports record trading volumes. JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are among the sell-side institutions to have signed up to the platform, known as Bats LIS (large-in-scale). Other firms expected to go live on the trading platform this month include Liquidnet, UBS, Citi and Deutsche Bank. The exchange operator reported a record in terms of value traded, with €114.8 million notional value traded last week. It also saw a record volume of €36.5 million on 16 March. Bats LIS - launched in partnership with BIDS Trading - is a MiFID II compliant, indication of interest (IOI), negotiation and execution platform that allows participants to negotiate large blocks in European equities without revealing intentions to the wider market. The platform has also been launched for the buy-side to provide traders with protection against information leakage through several unique features, the exchange said. Mark Hemsley, CEO of Bats Europe, explained the platform is a “much-needed solution to the challenges of trading large blocks of stock in the European market.” He added: “Bats LIS provides buy-side firms with control over their IOIs up until execution, which helps to protect against information leakage, while maintaining their important relationships with their brokers.” CBOE officially completed its acquisition of Bats Global Markets earlier this month in a cash and stock transaction valued at $3.4 billion. The acquisition has provided CBOE, which in the past has stayed away from takeovers, a gateway into the European equity and exchange traded fund (ETF) market.
The Bats LIS block-trading platform has expanded with the inclusion of sell-side participants JPMorgan , Liquidnet and UBS . The MiFID II-compliant system, which allows traders to negotiate and execute trades in blocks of equities without revealing intentions to the wider market, also posted a record in traded volume, at €114.8m ( $123.5m ), later in the month . Liquidnet , UBS , Citi and UBS are also expected to join the platform last week .