Cboe completes MATCHNow tech migration, launches Cboe BIDS Canada

Cboe Global Markets today announced it successfully migrated MATCHNow to Cboe technology on February 1, 2022. Along with this technology migration, Cboe has launched Cboe BIDS Canada, bringing a new and enhanced block-trading offering to the Canadian equities market.

MATCHNow is Canada’s largest equities dark pool, offering execution for institutional, proprietary and retail orders by combining frequent call matches and continuous execution opportunities in a fully confidential trading book. MATCHNow’s Conditionals Orders, which enable subscribers to electronically indicate block size liquidity in MATCHNow, are meeting market participants’ demand for more choice and flexibility, providing a valuable source of additional liquidity in Canada’s equities markets.

MATCHNow, based in Toronto, was acquired by Cboe in August 2020.

“Since Cboe acquired MATCHNow, we have been laser focused on the full integration of our companies and defining how we can further serve the Canadian market as one team,” said Chris Isaacson, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Cboe Global Markets. “Significantly, this included migrating MATCHNow’s platform to Cboe so that Canadian customers can benefit from our world-class technology and access Cboe’s diverse markets, asset classes, data and product suite with greater ease and efficiency.”

Cboe successfully launched Cboe BIDS Canada on February 1, 2022, marking its first new Canadian offering following its integration of MATCHNow. With this offering, Cboe brings BIDS’ leading block trading capabilities to Canadian investors.

The new offering leverages BIDS Trading’s proprietary technology to facilitate block trading on MATCHNow’s Conditionals platform – providing an enhanced Conditionals offering that enables market participants to execute block trades, while helping to reduce market impact.

BIDS operates the largest block trading ATS by volume in the U.S., facilitating interaction between the buy-side and sell-side for block trades. Working with BIDS, Cboe launched Cboe BIDS Europe (formerly Cboe LIS), a European equities block trading venue, in 2016. Since its launch, Cboe BIDS Europe has grown to become one of the largest block trading platforms in Europe, with a record month in January 2022 handling 29 percent of the large-in-scale market in Europe and accounting for approximately €600 million in average daily volume.

“We are pleased to extend BIDS’ block-trading capabilities into Canada and provide our users around the world with access to a new market,” said Adel Sarhan, Vice President of Product at BIDS Trading. “The BIDS model has served investors well in the U.S. and Europe, and we expect it will benefit the Canadian block trading market by providing additional liquidity and matching opportunities. We look forward to further extending this successful model to Australia and Japan in the near future, pending regulatory review and approval, as we continue to execute on our vision to create a global trading network spanning North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.”

2022-02-08