Phoenix Partners Group, a leading interdealer broker with offices in New York, London, Switzerland and Paris, announced today that it has successfully launched Firebird, its United States credit default swap ("CDS") electronic trading platform.
The Firebird platform was launched earlier this month into 14 CDS dealers, and presently supports the trading of High Yield (HY), Investment Grade (IG), and Loan (LCDX) CDS Index products. Firebird supports both hybrid-click trading, which allows traders to interact with their Phoenix brokers while simultaneously executing trades on their own, as well as pure-click electronic trading.
"Our new Firebird trading platform augments our greatest strength - our team of brokers - and leverages their broking capabilities in delivering best execution services to our clients, helping to ensure Phoenix Partners Group's position as one of the world's leading interdealer brokers," said Marcos Brodsky, Managing Director and co-Founder of the firm.
Firebird's versatile functionality and robustness positions Phoenix to register as a Swap Execution Facility ("SEF") under the Dodd-Frank Act when the Commodities Futures Trade Commission ("CFTC") finalizes its rules governing the trading of over-the-counter swaps, which are expected to be finalized this summer.
Among Firebird's wide-ranging capabilities:
* Real-time risk management
* Position limit monitoring
* Automated trade surveillance
* Ability to create audit trails
* Trade reconstruction functionality
* Supports 50,000 concurrent users
* Capacity to processes more than 600,000 transactions per minute
* Automated trade posting
* Straight-Through Processing (STP) and central clearing
"Today's announced launch is a significant milestone for Phoenix, and we are excited and encouraged by the strong reception that Firebird has already received in the dealer community," said Nicholas Stephan, CEO and co-Founder of Phoenix Partners Group. "We are now well prepared to qualify as a Swap Execution Facility once the CFTC finalizes its rules, and expect to be grandfathered as a SEF, and continue our operations seamlessly, once the rules take effect. As traders and brokers become more comfortable with comfortable with hybrid-click and pure-click execution methods, we plan to broaden the scope of our product offering."