Finland is the sixth European country to open its wholesale government bond market to competitive platforms, following Austria, Belgium, France, Holland and Ireland.

Over the last quarter, interest in the European government bond sector has grown as market volatility has continued to stabilise and as high issuance in the primary markets has led to favourable conditions for electronic trading.

In addition, many new counterparties are now applying to become primary dealers in many European government bond markets, a condition which is expected to result in new market entrants and to further increase BrokerTec's client base in the coming months.

John Edwards, Director of Fixed Income Sales at BrokerTec said, "We are delighted to be able to extend the services of the BrokerTec platform for Finnish Government Bonds, reflecting the progress that BrokerTec has made in establishing itself as a robust, liquid and respected dealing venue for government bond traders".

Teppo Koivisto, Director of Finance, Finnish State Treasury, commented: "With the opening of the Finnish interdealer markets to competing electronic trading platforms, Finland shows commitment to a European harmonization and fair terms of competition, with a goal to foster our bonds liquidity and trading infrastructure."

BrokerTec is a highly robust and scalable platform; widely installed across Europe and the US and already used by banks to trade European and US government bonds and repos. The BrokerTec 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.