OpenDoor Trading LLC (“OpenDoor”), a market-based solution designed to improve liquidity in the U.S. Treasury bond markets, has appointed Darcy Bradbury, former Assistant U. S. Treasury Secretary for Financial Markets, to its Board of Directors; and Debbie Matz, former Board Chairman of the National Credit Union Association (NCUA), to its Advisory Board.
The two appointments come just ahead of the widely-anticipated launch of OpenDoor’s pioneering U. S. Treasury and TIPS electronic marketplace.
Bradbury is a Managing Director at the D. E. Shaw group, a global investment and technology development firm. She served as Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets under President Clinton from 1993 to 1996, and Chair of the Board for the Managed Funds Association from 2009 to 2011. She also served on the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee from 2013 to 2016.
Bradbury makes the second Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets to put her support behind OpenDoor, providing a bi-partisan balance. OpenDoor’s current Senior Managing Director, Michael Paulus, was appointed by Clinton and served under George W. Bush through June 2001.
“The U. S. Treasury markets are the most liquid markets in the world, but changes in market structure and regulations have impacted the secondary markets for TIPS and off-the-run Treasuries,” said Bradbury. “I look forward to joining OpenDoor’s experienced team as we work to increase liquidity in U. S. Treasury securities, which will both benefit investors and make the Treasury markets overall more robust.”
Matz currently serves as a Board Member at Mutual of Omaha Bank, where she is a member of the Audit and Compensation Committees. She most recently served as Board Chairman for the National Credit Union Association from 2009 to 2016, where she was responsible for protecting the safety and soundness of 6,000 federally insured credit unions holding over a trillion dollars in assets. She also represented the NCUA on the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) from 2011 to 2013.
“Capital markets, and particularly the fixed income markets, are evolving at a rapid pace,” said Matz. “OpenDoor is at the forefront of this change and I am pleased to be joining its Advisory Board to offer my experience and industry insight.”
“Our focus over the last few quarters has been working to fully on-board both our dealer-sponsors and end-users, while continuing to expand our outreach to a broader set of customers,” said Susan Estes, CEO of OpenDoor. “Darcy and Debbie bring a rare mix of Wall Street and government experience that is a key ingredient to solving the structural and liquidity problems facing off-the-run Treasuries and TIPS. Their industry experience speaks for itself and they both embrace OpenDoor’s market-based solution as the answer to the structural liquidity problems facing 98% of the U.S. Treasury market.”
OpenDoor Trading LLC was formed in 2013 to address market structure challenges and deliver superior liquidity to the U.S. Treasury market. It plans to officially launch its market-based solution in Q1 2017.