Chi-East, the ”dark pool” joint venture between Nomura’s (8604.T) Chi-X and Singapore Exchange (SGXL.SI), said on Thursday it has started providing a platform for brokers to trade large blocks of shares.

“Chi-East will begin with Singapore, Hong Kong and Japanese shares before moving to other Asian markets such as Australia,” a Chi-East spokeswoman said.

Dark pools, so named because they represent large pools of "buy" and "sell" orders not visible to regular investors, are relatively new to Asia but operate quite freely and match billions of dollars in stock transactions each day in the West. 

 

Chi-East, which is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, has, however, committed to providing full post-trade price and volume transparency through data providers.

 

Brokers that have committed to participating on Chi-East include Instinet, Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Nomura and UBS (UBSN.VX), Chi-East said.