The Bank of America-Merrill Lynch deal was fraught with problems, most of which were front-page news. One area of skepticism was the disparate cultures of the firms--Merrill Lynch was all about Wall Street; Bank of America was more about Charlotte. So it's in the best interest of the combined entity to get out some news that can undercut the notion that the two are not culturally compatible.

Advanced Trading reports that the two banks have integrated their institutional trading platform. Two electronic trading platforms were merged via a best-of-breed approach, taking data and services from each side. Bank of America's Ambush and Instinct legacy algorithms survived. Merrill Lynch's dark pool, MLXN, and the firm's Block Seeker, which accesses liquidity across many dark pools also survived. This is the kind of news that ought to get out. I'm sure there will be bugs. We'll see what happens when--if--the combined firms try to integrated the advisor platform. Will it go as smoothly?   

For more:
- here's the Advanced Trading article

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