"Partnering with one of the industry's most widely-used order management systems was a natural course of action for us,” said Rob Flatley, managing director at Banc of America Securities Electronic Trading Services (ETS) group.

BAS' algorithmic trading strategies are available through version 3.2 of the UMA direct market access platform. SunGard plans to roll out the same capabilities to BRASS OMS Direct customers this quarter and to Broker Direct U2 customers early in the second quarter. Algorithmic routing destinations will be available through the broker sponsored buy-side version of Broker Direct U2, scheduled for early second-quarter release.

"In keeping with our broker-neutral model, we will soon make more destinations available to our clients," said Mark Clark, executive vice president, direct market access at SunGard Trading Systems/BRASS. "Banc of America Securities is a leader in this rapidly developing trading area. The ability to benefit from the research and development of such firms as BAS allows our broker-dealer customers to provide algorithmic trading as part of their product suite while concentrating their efforts on building relationships with their buy-side clients."

Broker-dealers using BAS' algorithmic order routing systems can choose to maintain their pre-existing execution and clearing relationships. BAS supported order types include VWAP; Target Volume; Order Staging Model; Sensitivity; Time Weighted Average Price and Arrival Price.