Instinet Incorporated, a global leader in electronic trading and agency-only brokerage services, yesterday announced that its brokerage subsidiaries are cumulatively the most widely accepted CSA providers, according to Integrity Research Associate’s survey of 214 buyside firms throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Instinet also received the highest average score for “Overall Satisfaction,” and was named the #1 provider in the following categories:
- #1 Global CSA Provider (among CSA providers that pay vendors in multiple global regions)
- #1 European CSA Provider (among CSA providers that pay vendors in Europe)
- #1 Asian CSA Provider (among CSA providers that pay vendors in Asia)
Michael Mayhew, Chairman of Integrity Research and the lead researcher on the survey, commented on the results: “Instinet was far and away the most widely mentioned CSA provider in our survey; it was cited as a ‘Top 5 Provider’ by nearly twice as many buyside respondents as the second most frequently cited provider. Typically a firm that receives that many more mentions relative to others will end up somewhere in the middle of the pack on an aggregate basis. We were therefore surprised that Instinet was able to dominate our survey to the extent that it did. These results are clearly a testament to Instinet’s CSA offering and reputation.”
“Instinet has long been recognized as a leader in the commission management space, and we are proud to be so well regarded by the buyside,” said Anthony Abenante, co-CEO of Instinet. “Given our commission management group’s overarching focus on customer service, we are particularly pleased to be ranked number one in ‘Overall Satisfaction.’”
He added: “We continue to invest in our commission management technology platform, Plazma, and are committed to growing this business. The offering perfectly complements the core tenets of our global agency-only model and our focus on helping clients achieve best execution.”
Conducted in the first quarter of 2010, Integrity Research’s survey asked CSA users to name their top five CSA brokers, with Instinet receiving the highest number of mentions among the 64 brokers cited. In addition, Instinet was designated as Integrity’s 2010 “Top Pick” among Global CSA Providers, European CSA Providers and Asian CSA Providers, and also had the highest average score for “Overall Satisfaction” among firms with at least 5 mentions, ranking 4.6 on a scale of 5 (excellent) to 1 (poor).
Instinet was one of the first brokers to offer CSA/CCA capabilities when it launched BrokerShare® in 2003. The program enables institutional clients to separate payment for research and other Section 28(e) eligible services from execution, resulting in a reduced number of executing broker relationships, improved trade anonymity and lowered administrative costs. BrokerShare accounts are managed entirely online through Instinet's sophisticated Plazma® platform, which allows clients to view, authorize, budget and analyze their commission dollars.