Gary Smith, the Managing Director of Garban Securities responsible for Credit Derivatives in London, said "We are using SwapsWire to transfer trade information immediately after the trade has been completed to reduce errors and allow the banks to gain efficiencies in their front, middle and back office functions. The key issue for STP is quickly reaching a critical mass of participants on a common platform, which is SwapsWire's strength. ICAP has adopted Mark-it RED as its reference data provider for the credit markets and the RED names and numbers are an integral part of ICAP's post-trade confirmation process using the SwapsWire platform."

Chip Carver, CEO of SwapsWire said, "We're thrilled ICAP has started to offer its clients this valuable service. We expect them to be the first of many interdealer brokers taking advantage of SwapsWire's capabilities to send their clients realtime FpML broker confirmations for both credit derivative and interest rate derivative products, using a single consistent interface."

SwapsWire has been successfully operating an automated broker and counterparty confirmation service for interest rate derivatives since October 2002, with over 60 sites active globally. ICAP was the first interdealer broker to join the SwapsWire network in November 2002.

Clients receiving FpML confirmations from ICAP can view the transaction details on-screen, and using SwapsWire's integrated counterparty confirmation service, these same details can be used to confirm transactions between counterparts, eliminating the need for downstream processing. ISDA has published a strategy paper which recommends dealers should aim to automate the confirmation process for credit and interest rate derivatives by December 2004. With this seamless integration between dealers and brokers, over 90% of credit default swaps, and close to 100% of interest rate swaps, are being confirmed between participating banks on trade date (T+0) far exceeding the goals of the ISDA operations strategy paper.