In addition to record volumes for both January and February 2009, Omgeos total 2008 fixed income allocation volumes via Omgeo OASYS, the US domestic allocation and confirmation offering, exceeded the previous years by 32%, with a record 3.3 million total allocations. Previous figures include 2.5 million total fixed income allocations via OASYS in 2007 and 2 million in 2006.
The recent surge in fixed income volumes is particularly reflected in the increase in corporate bond traffic seen across Omgeo OASYS systems; corporate bond allocations are up 55% YOY through February 2009. Clients leveraging Omgeo OASYS for corporate and municipal bonds benefit from the direct electronic pathway after confirmation to settlement at DTCC.
Omgeo also recently released Omgeo OASYS 6.0 with enhanced support for fixed income transactions, as determined by the Omgeo Fixed Income Working Party. The OASYS 6.0 enhancements include: increased maximum field length of the Pool field; increased maximum rate of return for Yield; the addition of the Discount Rate field; enhancements for the Settlement Location and additional fields to support repurchase (repo) agreements and options.
In developing OASYS 6.0, Omgeo also incorporated feedback from several industry focus groups, including the Commission Management Working Group (CMWG) of the International Securities Association for International Trade Communication (ISITC), and input from a wide range of Omgeos clients and partners.
Particularly in todays volatile markets, it is absolutely important for us to have access to automated fixed income processing, says Babu Sonti, chief technology officer, Summit Investment Partners. Omgeo has worked tirelessly over the past several years to ensure that its offerings consider the specific needs of the community when it comes to fixed income processing.
Theyve done a fantastic job of increasing awareness among the buy- and sell-side to bring the benefits of risk mitigation and reduced costs associated with automating operations to the industry at large.
Given the challenging market conditions, we continue to see strong fixed income demand and interest in 2009, says Kevin Arthur, director of fixed income markets, Omgeo. Further automating fixed income trade processing to facilitate risk and cost reduction and increase efficiency are major objectives within our client community.
L.D.