Nomura received approval for an Automated Trading Services (ATS) license by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) at the beginning of May 2010 and since then, a limited number of clients have been using the platform. From next Monday, June 21 2010, Nomura will include all of its institutional order flow for Hong Kong equities in NX. After NX crosses orders, it will automatically report the trades to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx).

Robert Laible, head of Electronic Trading Services and Program Trading Sales, Asia-Pacific, said, "After successful testing of live beta over the past few weeks, we are delighted to announce that NX Hong Kong is officially live. We are now opening up the platform to allow all our clients to benefit from our crossing network. Of course, we can accommodate those clients who opt out of trading in NX as well as those that prefer to trade ‘agency only.'"

By crossing orders in NX, clients will benefit from both anonymity and price improvement. Orders placed in NX will not be displayed externally or internally, allowing participants to place orders without revealing information, thereby minimizing market impact. NX will provide clients with the opportunity for price improvement in Hong Kong by accessing a central pool of liquidity formed by Nomura's agency and principal order flow and crossing orders within the bid-ask spread published on the HKEx.

NX in Hong Kong is the latest in a series of enhancements for Nomura's global build-out of its crossing platform. Nomura went live with NX in Japan and the U.S. in late 2009. In January 2010 it established NX as the first principal broker dealer Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) dark pool in Europe, where it regularly ranks amongst the top crossing platforms in terms of volume.