Due to go-live in the first quarter of 2013, Squawker will enable investment banks, market makers, agency broker, proprietary and principal trading firms to find, negotiate and unwind large positions anonymously, cost-effectively and within a single transaction without the risks of market movement or information leakage. The announcement from the UK FSA-regulated firm comes eight weeks after Squawker signed a multi-million pound Series-A investment from the private sector.

Christopher Gregory, co-founder and CEO, Squawker, comments: "Squawker is a secure forum, based on anonymous social-networking technology, where the human trader can find liquidity and personally interact, negotiate and build on block trades with their trading counterparties. Trades execute with all the efficiencies of electronic trade capture, reporting, audit trail, controls and downstream processing."

Gregory continues: "Order book trading has reduced costs and improved efficiencies for smaller orders. Larger-sized trades remain difficult to trade both on and off exchange. Sell-side traders currently have two choices: risk the market and opportunity costs of slicing and dicing block trades and executing them through either lit or dark order books, or trade via an Interdealer Broker, without the benefits of electronic transaction processing, compliance monitoring or audit trail. The time has come for a new type of trading venue, one that eliminates algorithmic flow and combines personal interaction and behavior with the efficiencies of electronic processing. In so doing, the financial markets will finally have an electronic venue free of toxicity."

Institutions will connect to Squawker via a FIX connection. At go-live, Squawker will enable trading in equities, ETFs and all stock exchange-traded instruments from 16 European countries.