Barclays Enhances Capital Commitment Feature

Barclays has introduced an automated capital commitment feature available through select equity algorithmic trading strategies in EMEA, which allows clients to create liquidity and transfer risk.

Clients must be entitled by Barclays before they can use the capital commitment feature. Once set up, clients can select the feature on a per-order basis through a check box on their algorithmic order screen. Barclays determines the level of facilitation in advance with each client based on liquidity needs, and may revise it based on quantitative evaluation.

With the capital commitment feature enabled, a portion of the client’s order is automatically transferred to Barclays’ central risk management book, thereby providing the client with instant liquidity as well as saving them the execution cost associated with that portion. The bank launched the feature in the U.S. in April 2013.