Markit, a provider of independent data, portfolio valuations and OTC derivatives trade processing, has launched a new electronic affirmation service within Markit Trade Processing.
The first dealers to sign up are Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.
The new service, which builds on Markit’s existing affirmation model, electronically matches trades between counter-parties prior to confirmation. Most alternative vendor affirmation applications simply provide a connectivity mechanism that routes information between sell-side and buy-side firms.
“As the derivatives market continues to grow substantially in both volume and complexity, our challenges associated with manual processing have also grown,” says Terrance Berland, senior managing director at Bear Stearns. “We are quite excited about the potential that Markit’s trade processing platform provides us to address these challenges across credit, rates and equities.”