Most EMEA ETF trading goes through RFQ platforms, but automated RFQ mainly handles small tickets

More than half of the European ETF trading that Flow Traders counts goes through request-for-quote platforms rather than exchange order books. The market maker’s September 2026 ETF market statistics, released on 28 October, put on- and off-exchange ETF value traded in EMEA at €304bn for the month. Of that, €164bn was “off exchange market value traded on MTF”, which Flow Traders says is “represented here by Tradeweb and Bloomberg RfQ”.

By The Midpoint’s calculation, that is 53.9% (€164bn ÷ €304bn). A further €42bn was “off orderbook” flow printed on exchange. Adding it gives 67.8% traded away from the lit order book (€206bn ÷ €304bn, again our calculation).

Figures are as published by the firms named; percentages are The Midpoint’s calculations from those figures.

What the numbers do and do not cover

Flow Traders’ footnote says its EMEA off-exchange figures include off-orderbook flow printed on exchange and flows via MTFs, and are “excluding flows via SI”. The EMEA total carries the same footnote, so systematic internaliser trading is missing from both sides of the ratio. That cuts two ways. If SI flow were included, the share traded away from the lit book would be higher than 67.8%. But the RFQ MTFs’ share of the whole market would be lower than 53.9%, because the denominator would grow and the MTF figure would not. Only Tradeweb and Bloomberg are counted as MTF flow. Flow Traders does not split the €164bn between the two platforms, and it does not say which venues make up the €42bn of off-orderbook prints.

Not new, and not growing faster than the market

The same release carries 13 months of history, showing that a majority share for RFQ is the norm, not a September event. On The Midpoint’s calculation from the monthly figures, the MTF share has been above 50% in 12 of the 13 months from September 2025 to September 2026. The exception was January 2026, at 48.3% (€187bn of €387bn). Across all 13 months the MTFs accounted for €2,282bn of €4,249bn, or 53.7%.

The share was higher a year ago. In September 2025 the MTFs took €161bn of €271bn, or 59.4% by our calculation. Year on year, EMEA value traded rose by about 12% (€271bn to €304bn) while MTF value rose by about 2% (€161bn to €164bn), again by our calculation. Off-orderbook flow rose from €34bn to €42bn. On these figures, the year’s extra trading went mainly to venues other than the two RFQ platforms.

Tickets are automated; the notional is not

Tradeweb’s September ETF update puts activity on its European ETF marketplace at €69bn, which it calls the second-highest level for the month. “The proportion of transactions and notional volume completed via Tradeweb’s Automated Intelligent Execution (AiEX) tool amounted to 96% and 35%, respectively,” Tradeweb says. In August the figures were 96% of tickets and what Tradeweb called “a record 36%” of notional. On Tradeweb’s US ETF platform the September split was 55% and 16%.

Tradeweb does not publish ticket counts or average trade sizes in these updates. The two percentages still imply how different the two populations are. By The Midpoint’s calculation, the average ticket handled outside AiEX was about 45 times the size of the average AiEX ticket: (65% of notional ÷ 4% of tickets) ÷ (35% ÷ 96%). Because Tradeweb’s percentages are rounded, the multiple could be anywhere from about 39 to 52.

We have not subtracted Tradeweb’s €69bn from Flow Traders’ €164bn to estimate Bloomberg’s volume, as neither firm says the figures share a basis.

Bloomberg does not publish ETF RFQ volumes on its listed trading page. It does say that RFQe “connects you to more than 200 dealers”. It also offers list and switch RFQs and a Strategy Optimizer for “large ETF trade lists”.

The exchange alternative

Deutsche Börse’s Xetra EnLight is an on-exchange RFQ for equities, ETFs and ETPs. It offers CCP clearing, settlement netting with order-book trades, rule-based AutoEx execution and a fee of 0.01bp capped at €5 (minimum €0.50). Its registered respondents include Flow Traders, Susquehanna and Virtu. Deutsche Börse does not break out EnLight ETF volumes on that page, so we cannot say how much RFQ flow it has won from the MTFs.

Why it matters for desks

• Size your orders against the whole market, not the screen. If half of EMEA ETF value traded prints on two RFQ MTFs, liquidity estimates built only from lit-venue volume will understate what can be done in size. Check what your pre-trade ADV includes.
• Use different protocols for different ticket sizes. Tradeweb’s 96/35 split suggests that the market already automates small tickets and negotiates large ones. Rule-based auto-execution suits the long tail. For blocks, what matters is how many dealers to ask, information leakage, and whether a list or switch RFQ beats separate legs.
• Read the denominator. Any “share of ETF trading” figure, including ours, depends on what it leaves out. Flow Traders’ figures exclude SI flow and count only two MTFs. In TCA, check whether a benchmark includes SIs, on-exchange off-book prints and other RFQ venues.
• Watch the tape. ESMA authorised EuroCTP on 27 July as the consolidated tape provider for shares and ETFs, with a transition period to 30 September 2026, and EuroCTP set its go-live date for 14 September 2026. ESMA says it will bring pre- and post-trade data from multiple contributors “into a single stream”. That is the obvious place to test the SI-shaped gap in these figures.

Sources

• Flow Traders, September 2026 ETF Market Statistics, 28 Oct 2026 (includes monthly history from September 2025)
• Tradeweb, Exchange-Traded Funds Update – September 2026, 9 Oct 2026
• Tradeweb, Exchange-Traded Funds Update – August 2026, 16 Sep 2026
• Bloomberg Professional Services, Equity & Listed Trading Solutions
• Deutsche Börse, Xetra EnLight
• ESMA, ESMA authorises EuroCTP as the Consolidated Tape Provider for shares and exchange-traded funds, 27 Jul 2026
• EuroCTP, EuroCTP Announces Authorisation as Europe’s First Consolidated Tape for Shares and ETFs, 27 Jul 2026