Icap upgrades credit trading technology

As a result ICAP-Credit will be the only platform to provide electronic price discovery and trading capability with credit default swaps (CDS), bonds, and repos on a single screen.

ICAP-Credit's new generation platform has a number of new credit specific pre-trading functions to help improve operational efficiency. Traders will also soon benefit from improved post-trade verification as a result of ICAP's link with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation's (DTCC) new single-screen affirmation platform AffirmXpress. In June it was announced that ICAP would be forming part of the pilot for the DTCC's platform.

ICAP-Credit also announced today an exclusive link to the Markit Portal, a tool that provides a unique view of business news and independent research integrated with Markit's proprietary credit pricing. Markit Group Limited is the leading industry source of independent data, portfolio valuations and trade processing for the OTC derivative markets.

The partnership between ICAP and Markit marks the first time the CDS community has had a truly integrated trading and information platform. Through a single screen, traders on ICAP Credit will have access to the Markit Portal's information and data to help identify trading opportunities, and then act on that information by placing orders on ICAP-Credit.

Gary Smith, managing director, Equities and Fixed Income, at ICAP commented,

"ICAP-Credit is setting the market standard in electronic trading. Not only will traders be able to trade CDS, bonds, and repos on one screen, but STP will be considerably improved as a result of our link to AffirmXpress.

"The ICAP-Credit link with Markit presents a unique window onto the financial markets that for the first time fuses asset pricing, news and independent credit research into a single trading screen. This will improve the flow of information and price discovery for the CDS trading community."