This enables primary dealers to fulfil their secondary bond market quoting obligations in these markets on the platform. The Dutch State Treasury Agency announced today that it was to open its markets to competing electronic platforms such as BrokerTec, following a similar announcement by the Belgian Debt Agency in January.

John Edwards, Director of Fixed Income Sales, ICAP Electronic Broking, said: "ICAP is delighted to be offering dealers the opportunity to fulfil their quoting obligations in Dutch and Belgian government debt on the BrokerTec platform. We have worked closely with the dealers and debt management offices to open the European government bond markets and we are pleased that primary dealers will have real choice over where they trade for the first time. We are working with other government agencies to adopt a multi-platform model and this will be a further step towards a more competitive, liquid and transparent European government bond market".

The Brokertec platform is widely installed across Europe, and is used by banks to trade European government bonds and repos. In the European repo market, more than $275 billion per day on average is traded on the platform. Approximately €8 billion per day in Belgian repo and €9 billion per day in Dutch repo is transacted on the Brokertec platform.

The platform is supported by state-of-the-art technology, which is regularly enhanced to ensure the highest levels of reliability and customer satisfaction. BrokerTec's straight through processing (STP) application automatically processes trades, allowing for enhanced execution and settlement, while simultaneously reducing costs and inefficiencies associated with traditional paper-based methods.