Market data vendor Bloomberg is teaming with a consortium of leading banks to form a new multibank electronic swaps trading company.
Bloomberg says the new company - which is being created with founder bank partners ABN Amro, Barclays Capital, Calyon, HSBC, JP Morgan and Societe Generale - will utilise the firm's SwapTrader platform, which currently offers electronic trading in vanilla swaps denominated in US$ and Euro currencies via the Bloomberg Professional terminal.
Russel Levi of Bloomberg says the increasing usage of derivatives among institutional asset managers is driving the demand for a well distributed multibank platform to provide best execution and straight-through processing for market participants.
"This new company will allow Bloomberg and its partner banks to share long term in the benefits of developing electronic trading. This will serve to combine Bloomberg's technology and distribution with the strong governance and liquidity provision that committed banks can bring."
Paul Humphrey, executive director and global head of e-business FI & FX at ABN Amro says the bank is putting its weight behind the initiative because it offers a stake in the governance of a growing market.
"Together with the superior Bloomberg distribution network, we believe our customers will have the greatest access point to our liquidity in a governed, multibank environment," he says.