Fidessa’s partnership with Virtu enables clients to access Virtu’s fully transparent and disclosed liquidity, together with improved upstream workflow to manage the more complex trading environment brokers now find themselves in.

"MiFID II is reshaping the liquidity landscape as trading migrates to more transparent and disclosed SIs and away from broker crossing networks and dark pools. At the same time, the focus on best execution has never been greater and now extends formally to the buy-side as well," said James Blackburn, Global Head of Equities Product Marketing at Fidessa.

Christiaan Scholtes, Head of EMEA Markets at Virtu, added: "As a leading equities and ETP market maker, we are pleased to be working directly with one of the premier technology providers in the industry and believe that this level of collaboration is helping to build the platforms of the future and drive efficient access to competitive liquidity."

Virtu’s customisable SI price feeds are integrated to Fidessa’s smart routing capabilities and market access so that they can be consumed as if they were additional venues sitting alongside traditional sources of liquidity. In addition, Fidessa’s advanced order handling capabilities now enable users to intelligently manage all their order flow across lit venues, SI operators, and the new Large in Scale dark pools that have emerged in the wake of MiFID II.

As reported by Fidessa’s Fragulator the level of SI activity has jumped significantly since the new rules came into effect on 3rd January 2018. Whilst much of this represents traditional SI activity, the upwards trend is clear given the industry’s focus on transparency and best execution.