Lehman Brothers subsidiary Townsend Analytics, a provider of multi-broker, multi-asset, multi-region, and multi-route electronic trading solutions for capital markets, has added BNP Pariba

Lehman Brothers subsidiary Townsend Analytics, a provider of multi-broker, multi-asset, multi-region, and multi-route electronic trading solutions for capital markets, has added BNP Paribas to its global multi-broker network. Clients of both firms can now route European equity orders to BNP Paribas for execution using Townsend's RealTick execution management system.

'As electronic trading continues to grow globally, our clients want high performance trading that can be customised to meet their sophisticated needs,' says Matthew Carr, a BNP Paribas managing director and head of institutional equities.

'The addition of Townsend's RealTick EMS to our expansive direct market access deployment provides the full-featured functionality and scalability that our clients expect and demand from BNP Paribas.'

Townsend Analytics executive director Rustam Lam says: 'BNP Paribas is a major global financial services institution with a presence in more than 85 countries, so we are pleased to add them to our global multi-broker network. The ability to route orders directly from RealTick to major market participants gives users a key advantage in the capital markets.'

BNP Paribas joins other recent additions to Townsend's network, including BNY ConvergEx, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Instinet, Merrill Lynch and UBS.

RealTick provides real-time market data, news and analytics, trading tools, access to brokers, exchanges and electronic communications networks, and delivers risk management tools to institutions, broker-dealers and individual investors.

Established in 1985, Chicago-based Townsend Analytics developed the first real-time financial software for Microsoft Windows, the first product to provide real-time streaming data over the internet, the first integrated solution for Nasdaq trading rooms and the first Windows-based direct-access trading solution.

Townsend Analytics also developed Archipelago and the Archipelago Exchange, the first fully open all-electronic US exchange, and has engineered direct-access solutions for money managers, asset managers, hedge funds and mutual funds worldwide. Its main business lines are trading services, content services, exchange services and risk management services.