American banking giant Citigroup says that it will shut down its LavaFlow ECN alternative trading platform next month.
Says a statement: "Following a recent review of the LavaFlow ECN, we have decided that our capital, resources and efforts would be better redeployed to other areas within Citi’s Equities Division."
LavaFlow - acquired by Citi when it bought Lava Trading in 2004 - is one of around 40 alternative trading systems that compete with exchanges by matching buy and sell orders for listed stocks.
Earlier this year the bank was fined $5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission for customer data protection failures at the platform.