Tora, Asia's leading provider of advanced trading technology and financial services, announced that Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML) has connected to Tora Crosspoint, increasing the number of broker pools accessible through TORA Crosspoint.
TORA Crosspoint, which launched in February 2010 for Japan-listed securities, is an off-exchange liquidity venue comprised of Tora's substantial internal liquidity and the aggregation of liquidity from multiple venues in Asia. These venues include Credit Suisse's Crossfinder, Instinet's CBX Asia, Japannext, Kabu.com and now BofAML's MLXN. Tora's Smart Order Routing (SOR) technology, embedded within TORA Crosspoint, searches for best available liquidity across various pools. This provides the buy-side with a central point of access to multiple off-exchange liquidity venues without participants changing their existing workflow.
"We are delighted to be working with a prominent broker such as Bank of America Merrill Lynch. This connection to its MLXN platform is a significant milestone for Tora and provides the buy-side with greater access to more liquidity in Japan," said Robert Dykes, CEO of Tora. "Additional brokers are expected to connect to TORA Crosspoint over the coming months."
TORA Crosspoint leverages internal liquidity traded by Tora clients, which accounts for more than 5% of the total trading volume on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, according to the company's data. During the second quarter, TORA Crosspoint offered more than $1.5 billion of daily liquidity in over 1,800 individual equities.
"We are excited to offer our clients improved access to off-exchange liquidity and ultimately the opportunity to capture price improvement," said Mark Wheatley, head of Japan Equities, Electronic Trading Asia Pacific at BofAML. "This combination successfully unites liquidity and adds significant value to buy-side firms in Asia."
TORA Crosspoint currently offers Japan listed securities. Hong Kong, Singapore and Australian equities will be added later in the year.
"With TORA Crosspoint, we have addressed two key concerns for the buy-side. It unites liquidity from various venues and operates in parallel with the trader's everyday oday order flow, eliminating the need to manually post and monitor orders. These are two key points which continue to resonate with traders in Asia," Dykes added.