Former US ECN operator Bats Trading, now a registered US exchange, says its European multilateral trading facility (MTF) has gone live, initially offering trading in 10 UK-listed securities.
The platform will roll out London Stock Exchange, Nyse Euronext and Xetra securities by 19 November.
The Bats ECN launched in the US in January 2006 and now claims a 11.44% matched market share in US equities.
Bats is now looking to replicate this success in Europe by launching Bats Europe - which is designed to handle high-speed, high-volume and anonymous algorithmic trading for broker-dealers - in the region to take advantage of the EU's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) and compete with the region's exchanges.
Credit Suisse's Advanced Execution Services (AES) team claims it was the first client to execute a live trade on the new Bats Europe platform.
Earlier this month Bats Europe partnered Chi-X Europe and Nasdaq OMX Europe to form an open, industry working group to develop a uniform symbology framework for trading European stocks. The partners say the creation of a uniform symbology will ease the complexities that come from trading in a rapidly fragmenting market.
Bats is the fourth MTF to launch since the introduction of MiFID, following in the footsteps of Chi-X, Turquoise and Nasdaq OMX Europe.
Chi-X moved into profitability for the first time in September, just 17 months after launch, while Turquoise, which went live two months ago, says it is winning business from the incumbent venues, racking up a 4.5% market share in the stocks it trades across 14 European countries.
A raft of new platforms, including Equiduct and Burgundy, which is being established by a group of Swedish banks to provide trading in Nordic equities, are expected to join the fray soon.
Bats' securities roll-out timetable will see all remaining FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 securities go live on 7 November. The remaining CAC 40, AEX 25 and BEL 20 securities will go live on 14 November, with DAX 30 following on 21 November.