UBS Launches New Registered Alternative Trading System in the US

This non-displayed crossing pool is a component of the firm's global
Price Improvement Network (PIN), and is called UBS PIN ATS (PIN ATS).
The new crossing pool will enable client orders to interact with UBS's US equity order
flow - including client agency flow and UBS trading desks. UBS trades around 690
million shares a day in the US, and this large pool of order flow will now be available to
cross with UBS clients' Direct Market Access (DMA) and Algorithmic Trading orders in PIN
ATS.
The firm created the ATS to complement its internal crossing network, "UBS PIN Cross."
This highly-selective network, which has been operating since 2006, offers interaction
with a subset of the firm's equity order flow - approximately 350 million shares a day -
almost half of which is retail order flow. This internal crossing pool, often previously
referred to simply as UBS PIN, was designed to discretely cross with only natural liquidity,
without information leakage.
Raul Esquivel, Head of Equities in the Americas at UBS, said, "The combination of these
two platforms gives clients the best of both worlds, a natural-only pool of liquidity for
highly sensitive situations, and the much broader PIN ATS pool, which brings together a
wide variety of order flows."
"PIN Cross has been very effective, but the selective nature of this internal pool did
exclude certain sources of crossing opportunities," added Will Sterling, Global Head of
Direct Execution at UBS. "PIN ATS will give clients access to an additional, more inclusive
pool of liquidity, which we believe will offer clients incrementally improved crossing
opportunities - translating to reduced signaling risk and measurable spread savings."
The ATS order book will not be published, or generate IOIs or signaling - -
UBS PIN ATS was registered as an ATS with the SEC earlier this month. Clients trading
electronically with UBS via algorithms or DMA tools will automatically have access to the
ATS with no additional trading steps or fees.