Barclays to launch Europe equities "dark pool"

LONDON, June 14 (Reuters) - Barclays Plc's (BARC.L) investment bank arm said it plans to launch a European "dark pool" trading platform, building on its U.S. platform as part of plans to expand its equities business globally.

Rival banks such as Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) already run in-house European "dark pools", electronic platforms that allow buyers and sellers of large orders of shares to avoid revealing pre-trade information and signalling their intentions to the rest of the market.

While increasing in popularity for large orders, dark pools have attracted criticism for lacking transparency, and European regulators are scrutinising the trading networks to see whether they provide fair pricing to investors and enough data to the market. [ID:nGEE5B31GV]

Barclays Capital's operation is targeted for launch in the third quarter and will be based on the U.S. platform it inherited after buying the U.S. operations of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Called LX, or liquidity cross, it allows users a tiered access, where clients can specify acceptable counterparties.

BarCap has traditionally been strong in debt markets and is ramping up in equities and M&A advisory to build on its expanded U.S. business since the Lehman deal. It has hired about 750 people in Europe in the last two years. [ID:nLT715431]

(Reporting by Steve Slater; editing by Simon Jessop)