Citi has announced that its global transaction services and Citi global markets businesses are now providing clients with an integrated electronic execution and custody service, called Citi Execution to Custody, for major equities markets.
Citi has said that the Citi Execution to Custody approach addresses the challenges of a complex execution and associated increasing order and trade volumes. The application combines electronic execution and smart order routing. It also uses global transaction services’s custody capabilities to reduce settlement costs, automate the settlement process, and provide full asset servicing, post trade.
For the buyside, the service is claimed to improve fund performance by decreasing costs in the middle and back office, while for the sellside, it provides operational efficiency and reduces cost by using Citi’s global network and processing capabilities, according to Citi.
The service will use Citi’s Lava Technology market access platform and Citi’s trade life-cycle order to trade to settlement automation platform, CitiConnect for Securities, with Citi’s proprietary custody branch network.
Curtis Brill, managing director and global head of electronic markets for securities and fund services at Citi, said: A dramatic shift has occurred in the European equities market. The number of trading venues has increased, causing significant fragmentation of liquidity in the marketplace.
