EquiLend, the global financial technology, data and analytics company for the securities finance industry, today announced that its Swaptimization platform will be going live this autumn for financial institutions in the European Union.
The EU launch of Swaptimization, which utilizes a proprietary matching algorithm to pair natural positions across market participants to facilitate bilateral security-based total return swaps (TRS), follows the ongoing success of the regulated platform in the U.S. swaps market.
EquiLend is now in the final stages of securing regulatory approval from the Central Bank of Ireland to operate Swaptimization as an organized trading facility (OTF), which will enable EU-based institutions to trade on the platform.
Operating as a regulated platform provides assurance to participants that robust oversight is in place. EquiLend systems are regulated in jurisdictions around the globe.
In advance of the EU launch, Swaptimization has been enhanced with new features including credit approvals and hedging notifications to counterparties, smart allocations in general collateral (GC) funding baskets and improved audit trail features.
Additionally, EquiLend has appointed Matthew Zienau, a swaps and equity finance expert with more than 30 years of experience at firms including Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, Citibank and Pershing, as Swaps Product Specialist based in London. Zienau will report to Matt Collins, Head of Swaptimization and EquiLend Clearing Services, and Rowena Brown, Head of Trading EMEA & APAC at EquiLend.
Brian Lamb, CEO of EquiLend, said: “EquiLend has transformed the global securities finance industry through technological efficiencies and in building an extensive network of market participants over our more than 20 years in fintech. We are excited to extend our solutions to the swaps community in Europe and to bring automation to the market in the region.”
Matt Zienau, Swaps Product Specialist at EquiLend, said: “I am thrilled to be joining EquiLend at a pivotal moment for the swaps industry as the firm continues its strategy of bringing automation to the global swaps markets. The continued expansion of Swaptimization marks a new era for TRS, a market in critical need of operational efficiency, automated workflow and regulatory certainty.”