The implementation of this system by ICAP addresses a key financial services industry requirement to improve post-trade processing for credit default products. This initiative is part of ICAP's overall objective of improving trading efficiency in the interdealer markets. The production implementation of the link to DTCC is anticipated in September following the completion of system testing.

Gary Smith, Managing Director responsible for Credit Default products in London said, "The industry is working to improve the post-trade process for credit default products and we can address that requirement by developing this link with the DTCC. As the industry moves away from the old, fragmented messaging systems, we expect this route to become the standard method of post-trade confirmation for the interdealer market.

As a result of ICAP's existing technology infrastructure, the vast majority of the banks that are active in credit default products are already connected to ICAP's post-trade systems and we are leveraging this connectivity. Our customers have responded positively to ICAP delivering post-trade messages to them that are DTCC compliant."

"We are pleased that ICAP is linking to DTCC Deriv/SERV for post-trade processing of credit default swaps. DTCC continues to work with inter-dealer brokers such as ICAP and other complementary service providers to facilitate straight-through-processing in the OTC derivatives market," said Peter Axilrod, Managing Director, Business Development of DTCC.

ICAP's is a leading voice and electronic interdealer broker of credit default products. The company has made a significant investment in providing post-trade connectivity directly with its customers covering a broad range of products in the fixed income, interest rate, foreign exchange and energy markets.

This connectivity provides for integration with ICAP's customers' front, middle and back office systems, covering both voice and electronically executed trades in multiple asset classes:

• Where trades are executed electronically, the information immediately updates the customers systems via an API connection and where appropriate the
  information goes to the relevant clearing house and industry based confirmation systems
• For voice-executed trades, information is provided to our clients who have opportunity to accept post trade detail prior to updating their internal systems, the relevant clearing house and industry based confirmation systems.

Each bank takes a different approach to handling post trade data and although some standards for the exchange of data, like FpML, are in use they are not universally applied. Where standards have emerged, ICAP has led the way in working with organisations like Swapswire to deliver connectivity to its customers' systems.