SunGard launches Assent Alternative Trading System

Raj Mahajan, president, SunGard's trading business: "With Assent ATS we are expanding into the execution space to help our customers improve their access to liquidity and achieve best execution."

SunGard has launched Assent ATS, an alternative trading system that provides a crossing network for U.S. equity trade order flow. SunGard's Assent ATS is intended to help customers access liquidity by aggregating order flow from retail, institutional and high frequency customers of SunGard's trading solutions such as Assent, Brass and GL solutions.

"When choosing a dark pool, firms are looking for liquidity, price improvement, match rates and speed," said Larry Tabb, founder and chief executive officer of TABB Group, a financial markets research and advisory firm. "Accessing only one dark pool with one type of order flow is no longer sufficient. The goal in executing against dark liquidity is to intercept order flow where it first enters into the execution stream - what is called unique liquidity. Firms will benefit most from dark pools with diverse unique liquidity, access to other dark and displayed markets, a mechanism that facilitates price improvement and technology that limits any if not all information leakage."

Raj Mahajan, president of SunGard's trading business said, "With Assent ATS we are expanding into the execution space to help our customers improve their access to liquidity and achieve best execution. SunGard's trading solutions help customers reduce costs while generating revenue by automating and streamlining every point of the trade lifecycle. Assent ATS adds a critical slice to our 360 degree approach to trading, further helping our customers to benefit from economies of scale, with improved fill rates and reduced costs."