Patent ID: 7840478

Claim:
An electronic trading system in communication with a plurality of dealers and a plurality of customers to provide said customers with conditional access to an inter-dealer exchange utilized by said dealers to facilitate the trading of financial instruments, the system comprising: a central computer including a memory, the memory configured to store an auto trading profile for a customer of the plurality of customers, said auto trading profile including one or more of a minimum customer order size, a maximum customer order size, or one or more customer order price parameters for a financial instrument; the central computer configured to: receive a customer order for the financial instrument from the customer; receive information on a current market for the financial instrument from the inter-dealer exchange; compare said customer order to the current market for the financial instrument within the inter-dealer exchange; automatically decide for a first dealer from the plurality of dealers as to whether to fill said customer order directly or to send all or part of said customer order to said inter-dealer exchange based on said comparison and said auto trading profile; fill all or part of said customer order directly or send all or part of said customer order to said inter-dealer exchange based on the automatic decision; when all or part of said customer order is sent to said inter-dealer exchange, communicate said all or part of said customer order to said inter-dealer exchange in a manner such that a second dealer within said inter-dealer exchange appears to be transacting with said first dealer and not said customer when filling said all or part of said customer order.