Cboe Australia, a Cboe Global Markets company, announced the successful buy-side focused launch of Cboe BIDS Australia’s BIDS Trader, a new block trading service for the Australian equity market.

Cboe BIDS Australia, which initially launched to sell-side participants in March 2023 as part of their successful technology migration, completed its roll-out in September with the BIDS Trader go live.

Cboe BIDS Australia is a large-in-scale (LIS) trading platform that enables market participants to negotiate large blocks in Australian equities and funds without revealing their intentions to the wider market. Cboe leverages BIDS’ highly-regarded software, BIDS Trader, and buy-side channel distribution, combined with Cboe infrastructure for trade execution, clearing and settlement. Cboe acquired BIDS Trading in 2020.

The BIDS platform has significant global reach with over 500 buy-sides and 100 sell-sides connected in the U.S., Europe, Canada, and now Australia. It is also the largest block trading Alternative Trading System (ATS) in the United States, the largest Large-in-Scale (LIS) trading system in Europe, as well as a leading conditional trading venue in Canada since going live in February 2022.

Murrough O’Brien, Head of Cboe BIDS APAC, said:

“The strengths of Cboe and BIDS have been brought together to create a much-needed solution to the challenges of trading large blocks of stock in the Australian market. Global clients want global solutions. Cboe BIDS is an innovative platform designed for and built by market participants. It provides fund managers not only with the capability to anonymously negotiate blocks of Australian equities and funds, but to manage their commission payments with their trusted brokers deepening those relationships.”

At present, 12 sell-side firms have signed the legal agreements to be Sponsoring Participants on BIDS Trader and Cboe BIDS Australia anticipates this number to expand given the benefits it provides to fund managers and brokers.

The service provides buy-side traders with protection against information leakage through several unique features. First, conditional messages disclosure and interaction is controlled by the buy-side trader via customisable trading tools, including minimum block size and counterparty scorecarding and filtering based on past trading behaviour. Secondly, designated broker (Sponsoring Participant) selection occurs when the conditional messages are ‘firmed up’ and the broker executes the order on exchange.

BIDS has enhanced Cboe Australia’s suite of trading services by providing trading participants with various options to execute their trading strategies in a way that best suits them. The platform encompasses all equities and funds that are tradable on Cboe Australia.