(this first appeared on The Trade)

Barclays has announced its equities order handling tool is available in Europe from this week, following its launch in the US.

SPECS provides buy-side traders with an online portal to view, verify and request changes to client order handling settings.

It was designed to meet requirements for greater control, transparency, trade analytics and a consolidated view of order settings, Barclays said.

The SPECS profile includes settings related to market access, liquidity preferences and Barclays LX Europe, alongside notifications and alerts on product updates.

Head of European cash equities execution sales at Barclays, Eric Krueger, said SPECS gives users an “unprecedented level of transparency and control of their execution preferences.”

He also explained the SPECS tool is integrated with Barclays’ post-trade analytics platform to help traders “better understand and manage their execution performance.”

Nej D’jelal, head of equities electronic trading product at Barclays, added that SPECS will also help buy-side traders in Europe navigate an “increasingly complex execution environment,” amid MiFID II best execution and algorithmic trading requirements.