Instinet Rolls out BlockCross in Canada

Instinet Incorporated (Instinet), Nomura Group's execution services arm announced on Wednesday the launch in Canada of BlockCross, a workflow solution for managing block trading in securities.

According to the announcement, the new rollout will be operated by Instinet Canada Limited (ICL) and enable traders to route a variety of conditional, block-size orders to Instinet’s Canadian alternative trading system (ATS), Instinet Canada Cross Ltd. (ICX).

Now, clients are able to trade Canadian securities, in addition to US and European securities, via the unique functionality made available in BlockCross’s order-management interface. Client demand for the BlockCross platform, which includes a unique ‘blotter scraping’ functionality that optimizes interaction with a client’s order blotter, has driven a global rollout strategy for the firm. The new offering will afford clients the opportunity to seek block liquidity in ICX for listed Canadian securities, while minimizing risks of information leakage.

“BlockCross gives our clients an easy and convenient dashboard for managing orders with a variety of conditional capabilities. They can set orders to operate on an auto-ex basis and activate Instinet’s algo strategies to manage their potential counterparties and venues. That balance of control and workflow customization may be one of the reasons that BlockCross wins industry awards year over year,” said Mark Govoni, President of Instinet.

Instinet is in the process of further expanding the rollout of BlockCross to other markets across the globe. The APAC markets will be next, with a targeted first deployment in Hong Kong in early part of 2022.