A group of leading Spanish banks and brokers have come together to launch Senaf, a new electronic platform to trade repos in national government debt.
With repo market trading volumes in Spain reaching €4.8 trillion in 2001, the firms backing Senaf say the new platform will help boost liquidity in the Spanish debt markets.
Raymond Sabbah, CEO of Senaf, says the development of the trading platform required a significant investment, involving 180,00 man-hours of work and 5000 hours of testing.
Electronic trading platforms now account for 16% of the repo market in Europe, a market with a total outstanding volume of €3.3 trillion, according to the latest report of the International Securities Market Association (Isma). Traditionally these have been traded by telephone.
The trading volume of the Spanish repo market was €3.6 trillion in 2000, with 36.6% growth compared to 1999, according to Bank of Spain figures. According to the latest statistics this volume has increased again in 2001 by 31.5%, reaching €4.8 trillion.
Senaf (Sistema Electrónico de Negociación de Activos Financieros, Electronic Trading System of Financial Assets) has been developed by the Mercados Financieros Holding Group. Its main shareholders are the leading Spanish banks and the four brokers officially authorised as blind brokers by the Bank of Spain.