BATS Adds GETCO Execution Services as Dark Scan Destination

KANSAS CITY, Mo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BATS Trading Inc., an innovative and technology leading U.S. market center, announces that GETCO Execution Services is now a destination for BATS’ Dark Scan, an order type designed to integrate a broad mix of liquidity sources as well as lower access fees for BATS’ subscribers.

“We’re proud that Dark Scan will now include GETCO Execution Services, continuing our pattern of linking only with those Dark Liquidity Partners likely to provide the best fills for our subscribers”

Under the Dark Scan program, BATS routes to Dark Liquidity Partners such as GETCO Execution Services and offers a lower access fee to its subscribers. After accessing DLPs, any remaining shares are passed through the BATS book, which offers the lowest across-the-board liquidity removal rate among major market centers.

“We’re proud that Dark Scan will now include GETCO Execution Services, continuing our pattern of linking only with those Dark Liquidity Partners likely to provide the best fills for our subscribers,” said BATS Chief Executive Joe Ratterman. “As we move even closer to Exchange status, we will continue to build on our history of innovation to Make Markets Better.”

By opting into Dark Scan, customers can expect the total scan process to take between 5 and 50 milliseconds for potential DLP fills before the order is sent back to the BATS book to fill any remaining shares. However, if there is liquidity on the BATS book that offers price-improvement relative to the NBBO, those orders will be accessed before routing to Dark Liquidity Partners.

A primary tenant of Dark Scan is the transparency of DLPs. Subscribers can count on knowing who is in the list of DLPs at BATS at all times. On a trade-by-trade basis, however, full anonymity for both sides is maintained.

Other members of the Dark Scan program include Liquidnet H20™, Liquidity Ping by ATD, A Citi Company, and Knight Link.

Dark Scan is completely optional, and customers will need to opt-in by setting FIX tag 18=z (lower case) in order to take advantage of the new functionality. Dark Scan orders can also be flagged to route unfilled shares to other markets using the BATS CYCLE routing strategy by setting fix tag 9303=R, or as non-routable by setting 9303=B (BATS Only). Each DLP fill will have the lower access fee reflected in FIX tag 9621 (ECNAccessFee). In addition, FIX tag 375 (ContraBroker) will reflect “DARK” for each DLP fill.

About BATS

BATS Trading is a subsidiary of BATS Holdings, an innovative global financial markets technology company based in Kansas City, Mo. with additional offices in New York and London. The BATS Trading ECN platform was launched in January 2006 and is one of the fastest-growing, top-tier equity markets in the United States. The company also has plans for a European launch in 2008 through its wholly owned subsidiary based in London. The BATS platform is internally developed by a dedicated core team of market and technology professionals, catering to the needs of the broker-dealer and trading community. BATS is backed by a broad-based ownership group including affiliates of Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, GETCO, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Lime Brokerage, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Tradebot and Wedbush. BATS … Making Markets Better.