Press Releases
SunGard Launches Assent Alternative Trading System
June 22, 2009 — New York, NY
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 helps 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.
SunGard’s electronic crossing network provides an opportunity for customers to fill an order before they send it to displayed markets. Customers can also use the Assent Smart Order Router to participate in additional displayed and non-displayed markets. By leveraging the high volume of daily shares processed through SunGard’s trading solutions, the Assent ATS will help customers improve fill rates, reduce transaction costs and achieve faster trade execution with minimal market impact.
The continued fragmentation of liquidity presents a challenge for financial firms seeking “best execution,” defined by price improvement, speed and likelihood of execution. The ability for trading firms to access multiple execution venues helps them achieve “best execution.” SunGard’s Assent ATS provides firms with one execution point that has access to a diverse pool of liquidity, including other dark and displayed venues. Assent ATS is a component of SunGard’s trading solutions, which provides services at each point of the equity transaction lifecycle from order receipt, trading and marketplace routing to post-trade analytics, compliance monitoring and clearing. Assent ATS gives customers the ability to execute a trade within the same service, helping improve their overall trading performance, achieve economies of scale and lower their execution fees.
“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.”
About SunGard’s Assent Liquidity ServicesSunGard’s Assent Liquidity Services offers a suite of market access solutions for both buy- and sell-side institutions. SunGard’s Assent Liquidity Services helps firms improve execution quality, minimize information leakage and decrease total overall execution costs. Assent Liquidity Services provides integrated solutions from a single vendor to help buy-side and sell-side institutions explore new revenue opportunities, enhance execution quality and capabilities, and reduce access and clearing costs associated with participating in a deeply fragmented marketplace. Integrated with SunGard’s order and execution management solutions, as well as the SunGard Transaction Network (STN), Assent Liquidity Services includes the Assent ATS, Assent Sponsored Access, Assent Smart Order Routing, Assent Dark Pool Aggregator, and Assent Algorithms.
About SunGardSunGard is one of the world’s leading software and IT services companies. SunGard serves more than 25,000 customers in more than 70 countries, including the world’s 25 largest financial services companies.
SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. SunGard also provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software.
With annual revenue exceeding $5 billion, SunGard is ranked 435 on the Fortune 500 and is the largest privately held business software and services company on the Forbes list of private businesses. Based on information compiled by Datamonitor*, SunGard is the third largest provider of business applications software after Oracle and SAP. Continuity, Insurance & Risk has recognized SunGard as service provider of the year an unprecedented five times. For more information, please visit SunGard at
www.sungard.com.
*January 2009 Technology Vendors Financial Database Tracker
http://www.datamonitor.comTrademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo, Assent, Brass and GL are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Brokerage products and services offered through Assent are provided by Assent LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.