There has been an increased focus on non-government bonds as companies seek additional sources of credit, with the outstanding debt of European financial companies increasing over the last three years. Most of this debt comes from France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain, and has prompted a French-led initiative to deliver an efficient electronic market for these products.

MTS, Europe's premier facilitator for the electronic fixed income market, responded to this need with the development of MTS Credit, which offers trading in more than 2,400 investment grade, corporate, financial and covered bonds.

The platform is designed to meet the regulatory drive to bring efficient, transparent access to European fixed income. It operates as a pan-European multilateral trading facility and uses MTS' existing BondVision distribution technology, offering support for a range of trading strategies with access points including RFQ, dealer pages and an order-driven market.

MTS Prime is a component of the MTS Credit service and will give institutional investors the ability to trade directly on the order book, through a sponsorship relationship, with Crédit Agricole CIB acting as the first prime bank. Dealers will continue to access the market directly, with pre- and post-trade anonymity guaranteed for all clients, delivering an order-driven electronic market for trading fixed income across Europe.

Jack Jeffery, CEO of MTS, said: "Increased issuance, market volatility and uncertain liquidity have changed the landscape for non-government bond trading in recent years. Crédit Agricole CIB's involvement as our first prime bank is a pioneering move and marks the next stage in the development of fixed income and credit markets across Europe. The launch of MTS Prime is testament to our ongoing focus on delivering tools that enable market making banks to service their customers more effectively."

Mariano Goldfischer, Head of Global Debt Markets at Crédit Agricole CIB said: "This initiative is leading the way for a European solution in this space and is a major step forward for credit markets. The timing is also right to bring the benefits of e-trading to this space - with the associated transparency, price discovery and audit trail required in European fixed income trading.

"We're proud to be a part of this solution for financial markets and to be the first to offer clients efficient access to liquidity and price transparency to euro-denominated credit."