BrokerTec claimed today that, following its launch of Swedish bond trading, it has now become the only electronic trading platform to serve all fourteen European Union government bond and repo markets. Alongside existing basis trading and spreads functionality, clients can now trade both cash and repo in government bonds in Germany, France, UK, Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Austria, Finland, Ireland, Denmark and Sweden through a single application.
“The growth in our EU Repo business, where we now trade over EUR75 Billion a day (single count), demonstrates the importance our customers place on our straight through processing capabilities and central counterparty relationships,” says Garry Jones, CEO and President of BrokerTec Europe. “Our EU Government volumes are also growing, with a recent record day of EUR3.6 billion, and a market leading daily average German Bund volume of EUR1.4 billion during August. In basis trading we are currently averaging over 28 per cent of the Inter Dealer Broker business transacted on the Eurex BTF.”
BrokerTec says its business continues to grow strongly in Europe: overall transaction revenues were at a record high in August, a traditionally quiet month, and the momentum has accelerated into September. In particular, BrokerTec has seen significant volume increases in Southern European repo markets (Spain, Greece, Portugal), recently added to the platform. This has complemented BrokerTec’s traditional strengths in Northern Europe, where the largest markets are Germany, France and the UK.
BrokerTec Europe’s business model has been to use central counterparties such as LCH and Clearnet, wherever possible, in order to allow its participants to maximise the advantages of netting and straight through processing. BrokerTec Europe currently uses central counterparties in 9 of its 14 EU markets: Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, U.K., Portugal, Finland and France.
In August BrokerTec announced that it has become the first fully electronic gilt Inter Dealer Broker to be endorsed by the UK Debt Management Office and the first to utilise a central counterparty.