Dark pools are watering holes for traders that have insider knowledge. This is reflected in the high rebates that liquidity providers receive.
Quote from FerdinandAlx:
BATS Europe does. I thought Turquoise and Chi-X had a maker-taker rebate scheme too but I checked and they charge a %based fee to both sides.
Quote from WhiteOut56:
If you provide on a dark pool Chances are they charge u something like .25/100. How do dark pools even attract anyone who is interested?
How can anyone be profitable w those margins
Quote from dinn13:
Don't know what it's like for retail but for institutional traders most dark pools don't charge anywhere near 25 mills. There are a few that do and charge more but they tend to be for exclusively trading large size
Knight and Getco are known for not charging anything for crossing the spread to take liquidity.
Credit Suisse Crossfinder and Goldman Sachs Sigma X cost far less than 25 mills but it is negotiated per firm based on volume.
So for liquidity takers it is a lot cheaper to remove liquidity than on Nasdaq/Bats/Arca/Nyse/Edgx and one doesn't affect the NBBO directly so a lot less likely to move the price.
For liquidity providers one can post size while not showing your hand to the market. Also since the quote is not part of the NBBO, when the market is swept one won't necessarily get filled which can be a good thing since it tends to be hft players who find the pricing advantageous to them. So fills are more likely to be from natural buyers/sellers although hft players are quite involved with dark pools and will often sweep the dark pools prior to sweeping the NBBO exchanges in order to source liquidity prior to a market move. Can be mitigated to a degree by having a minimum fill size set on the order (something that not all exchanges allow so another benefit for many dark pools).
Quote from jd7419:
Dinn, You seem quite knowledgable on dark pools. I have never been swept on crossfire before a market move. From your experience does this happen often? Also do dark pool transactions post on time sales in real time, from my experience they do not since I never see my dark pool transaction on t/s.
Quote from annaland:
You have different benefits with dark pools. First, there is a minimum threshold for size; set buy an amount of volume that would move the price. The threshold is set in order to not allow a dealer or another trader to front run (or step ahead of the order and ride the price change ahead of the large order). Second, there's typically a 15 minute post-trade transparency delay (which allows dealers to hedge their positions without disclosing their trading strategies).