Financial spread betting and contracts for difference provider IG Group Holdings has extended its Smart Order Routing technology by incorporating liquidity from BATS Europe, the operator of a European multilateral trading facility (MTF).

IG Group’s Smart Order Routing searches out the best offered price for clients across multiple liquidity venues. This is something that the firm stated has become increasingly significant as the traditional execution venues, which are also known as or primary exchanges, continue to see their market share eroded by MTFs.

Covering over 1,000 European-listed equities over seven pools, IG Group’s technology also offers users the alternative of free price and depth-of-market feeds on selected shares, which is something they may have had to pay to receive in the past.

Tim Howkins, CEO, IG Group, stated “This is another innovation by IG Group to ensure we continue to build on our position as the worldwide market leader for contracts for difference trading and financial spread betting,” said

“We were the first firm of our kind to start working with the MTFs last November. By extending the markets our clients can access even further, better liquidity will result in more competitive pricing when they trade with IG Markets.”

IG Group revealed that MTFs are seeing rising levels of popularity with up to 40 percent of FTSE 100 share transactions now taking place away from the main exchange.

Without the ability to interact with these markets, it stated that clients are unable to see the whole array of prices available and are putting themselves at an immediate disadvantage.

In addition to drawing from the lit pools at BATS Europe, Chi-X and Turquoise, IG Group will also feed any trades of size through the dark pools to ensure that clients’ trades are filled at the very best prices available.