Agency broker and financial technology firm Investment Technology Group has announced plans to expand its product and market offering in the course of this year.

Agency broker and financial technology firm Investment Technology Group has announced plans to expand its product and market offering in the course of this year.

The firm's range of products and services includes operation of the Posit suite of intraday equities crossing systems and transaction analysis tools such as ITG TCA, the Triton execution management system, and various algorithms.

It says its revenues in Europe for 2008 were GBP42.3m up from GBP40.3m the previous year.

Pre-tax profits for the period were broadly unchanged at GBP3.9m.

Plans for 2009 include the expansion of ITG's crossing system into new markets and also the introduction of new algorithms.

'The introduction of MiFID in late 2007 and the subsequent fragmentation in the markets has led to a surge in demand from institutional investors wanting intelligent trading tools, algorithms and smart routers, both to reduce costs and to demonstrate best execution,' says the chief executive of ITG in Europe, David Stevens.

'Naturally this trend works in our favour. Another plus has been our agency status, as ITG is perceived as a safer counterparty than institutional brokerages with operations in riskier areas of the market. We have been able to report solid results for 2008, and I am optimistic that our combination of trading and analytical products will stand us in good stead in 2009.'