Better late than never.
In a bid to boost its image and give the buyside more transparency into its order routing logic, bulge bracket firm Barclays has released a new system, dubbed SPECS, that will give institutional traders greater insight into the firms order routing practices and methodology.
The release comes amid increased scrutiny of Barclays and other bulge bracket brokers routing practices and how these firms execute client orders, both in the lit trading venues but more importantly the darker ones, such as LX, the firms own dark pool.
SPECS is an an online client portal that allows traders to easily view, verify and request changes to their order handling settings with the brokers equities trading desk. Accessible through Barclays institutional trader portal, Barclays Live, the portal provides a consolidated view of a clients settings in an easily accessible and easy to use format. Barclays is on-boarding clients to the platform starting this week.
SPECS provides our clients with a consolidated overview of their order handling settings, across our business, and helps to create clearer accountability in the management of our clients orders, said Eric Schlanger, Head of Equities, Americas in a release.
With SPECS, clients can view, attest to or request changes to their specific profile directly in the online portal, with only a few clicks. A typical SPECS profile will include market access settings, settings for Barclays two ATSs (LX and DirectEx), and venue preferences. The portal will consolidate notifications, announcements of product updates, and alerts on any changes to their settings. Clients can also request a printable report of their profile settings.
Our goal for SPECS is that it becomes a one-stop destination for the most up-to-date information on Barclays equities execution platform, across all our product lines, said Joe Mecane, Managing Director, Electronic Equities and Credit Products. The portal helps to simplify our clients work flow and gives clients increased transparency into their order handling. We are committed to being a leader in this area, providing visibility into how we handle our clients orders and disclosing in detail how we operate.
Additional features planned for SPECS include product education videos, searchable FAQs, and important documents and disclosures. SPECS was conceived of, and built and designed by Barclays. The portal is currently available to Barclays US equities clients, and will be progressively rolled out to clients in other regions.
