Chi-X Europe says Merrill Lynch's smart order router executed over 100 million shares on its pan-European multilateral trading facility (MTF) in a single day last week.
The vendor says Thursday 17 July was a record day which saw Merrill's smart order router executing in excess of one hundred million shares on its platform.
Yvonne Hansmann MD and head of Emea execution sales at Merrill Lynch, says as the markets fragment the bank has invested heavily in its proprietary smart order routing technology to ensure it delivers best execution for clients.
"We are one of the few brokers in Europe to offer comprehensive smart order routing which we estimate is saving clients in excess of three basis points of market impact," says Hansmann. "As new platforms come on line we are integrating them into our smart order routing platform to ensure we remain the broker of choice for best execution."
Peter Randall, CEO of Chi-X Europe says since launching sixteen months ago, there has been a steady growth in the number of orders and number of trades executed on Chi-X Europe.
"This a great testimonial to our claim that we are faster, cheaper and smarter than executing on the underlying exchanges," says Randall.
Last month interagency broker Instinet Europe, which has a majority stake in Chi-X, said smart order routing is key to success for agency brokers operating in the increasingly fragmented post-MiFID market.
Richard Balarkas, CEO of Instinet Europe, said the introduction of competition in the European stock exchange space had not resulted in any evident deterioration in liquidity opportunities, price formation or execution performance and by using innovative smart-routing technology, the firm has been able to exploit significant pricing opportunities on behalf of clients.