ICAP's Trade Processing & FX Infrastructure Divisions Onboard FCMs, Release UTI

In keeping with the institutional FX industry's continual requirement to develop their solutions in order to maintain compliance with the regulatory reformation which is currently taking place globally, ICAP's post-trade processing and OTC infrastructure provider TriOptima has today announced that it has launched a UTI (Unique Trade ID) pairing functionality to assist firms preparing for the European trade repository reporting regulatory framework, which is scheduled to come into effect February 2014. The service accommodates both paper-confirmed and FX trades without a common-match ID.

The European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), in a similar vein to the Dodd-Frank Act in North America, encompasses a series of trade reporting rules, which in the case of EMIR require that trades outstanding during the specified period before the effective date be reported to a trade repository. In order to achieve this backloading, firms must agree to UTIs for those trades.

Whilst Europe is aiming for the early stages of next year, the United States has already secured its guidelines, which were discussed in a panel in June this year, at which Forex Forex Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Read this Term Magnates was present. Jaqueline Liau, FX Prime & Global Head of Product and Service at HSBC, commenced the discussions at the time by explaining that from her perspective there was a degree of ambiguity in the marketplace as to which parties are expected to conduct the reporting: “There is plenty of confusion in the market from both buy and sell-side, and it is unclear as to who reports what trade information, and who has to carry out the reporting,” said Ms. Liau.

With regard to this matter, ForexClear CEO, Gavin Wells explained to the panel that: “Some changes to how we report are going to be required. We report on our own information in the US and Europe. The deadline relating to the ability to report trades was January this year for the US, and will be next January for Europe. We have always reported trades.”

In order to accommodate this, TriOptima’s new service enables firms using triResolve to assign a UTI to paper-confirmed OTC derivative trades and FX trades lacking a common- match ID.

This new service leverages triResolve’s extensive population of matched trades to centrally generate UTIs where a common-match ID does not exist. If one side has already generated a UTI, triResolve will share the UTI with the counterparty. While many OTC derivative trades are electronically confirmed, there is an inventory of paper-confirmed trades or FX trades that will require counterparties agreement to a UTI for reporting purposes.

“Standard identifiers are essential to realizing the benefits of increased regulatory reporting, and we are delighted to support our subscribers in the key role of assigning and distributing these identifiers,” said Raf Pritchard, CEO of triResolve. “With more than 600 firms using triResolve and a database of over seven million trades, leveraging the triResolve network to facilitate compliance is an efficient and transparent solution. triResolve offers detailed trade information, analytical tools and a communications platform that will support the new reporting requirement.”

Traiana CreditLink Onboards FCMs , Trading Venues And Buyside Firms

Whilst TriOptima concluded the development of its UTI, another of ICAP's institutional trade technology firms, Traiana which conducts pre-trade risk and post-trade processing solutions, announced today that it has added the support of a further seven futures commissions merchants (FCMs) to its CreditLink service ahead of the November 1 regulatory deadline for pre-trade screening of trades conducted on Swap Execution Facilities (SEFs).

These include BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, RBS, UBS and Wells Fargo as well as other globally recognized clearing firms. These FCMs are in addition to Barclays, BofA Merrill Lynch, Citi, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, who were all previously announced. Traiana now has a total of 15 FCMs supporting CreditLink, a significant proportion of the market.

“While the industry is still implementing many aspects of the end-to-end infrastructure required for certainty of clearing of trades executed on SEFs, the CreditLink service is in live production operation and ready for pre-trade screening of orders on SEF venues.” stated Nick Solinger, Head of Product Strategy and Chief Marketing Officer, Traiana in a commercial statement.

CreditLink is connected to or being implemented by swap execution facilities (SEFs) and designated contract markets including Bloomberg’s SEF, GFI Group, ICAP/iSwap, ICE Swap Trade, Javelin, MarketAxess, SwapEx, TeraExchange, Tradeweb Markets, Tradition/Trad-X, trueEX and Tullet Prebon/tpSWAPDEAL and has been built in consultation with major clearing houses.

CFTC regulations require that a clearing member define limits and must carry out pre-trade credit checks on clients’ orders prior to execution on SEFs. To meet these regulatory requirements, CreditLink acts as a centralized hub and provides trading platforms, clearers/prime brokers, executing banks and buy-side firms the ability to monitor and manage pre- and post-trade credit in real-time across trading venues in a consolidated view.

Mr. Solinger was present alongside Ms. Liau at July’s discussion panel on the Dodd-Frank rulings, where he spoke about the pre-trade responsibility regarding SEFs. As the discussion turned to matters concerning mitigating flaws in execution whilst still adhering to the regulations, Mr. Solinger explained to the panel that “If you trade on Reuters or EBS, your trade is done at the point of execution; therefore we have to ensure the process of clearing relationships doesn’t make us take a step backward, and take up time on the pre-trade side, yet still ensure it complies. There is still work to do to closing the gap. An order gets approved, sits on the book for 2 hours, this gap must be closed.”

On September 26, 2013, the first trading venue completed a live credit default swap (CDS) index trade using Traiana’s CreditLink service as the credit hub to verify pre-trade credit limits. JP Morgan acted as the clearing member for the major buy-side participant on the trade. Since the October 2 deadline for SEFs, additional venues have tested and conducted numerous live trades.

Traiana’s CreditLink service offers clearing firms and buy-side firms the ability to manage trading and clearing limits in real-time for interest rate, credit and foreign exchange swaps. Firms are able to pre-screen orders to trade swaps prior to execution in low latency, providing certainty of clearing acceptance by their FCM at the time of execution.

According to the company, the ability to maximize access to Liquidity Liquidity The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent Read this Term and reduce limit fragmentation for all market participants is paramount and based on this ethos, CreditLink supports request-for-quote and request-for-streaming trading using a centralized limit check (Ping model) and also gives FCMs and their clients the ability to distribute limits directly to specific trading venues or CCPs to minimize latency (Push model), which is important for buy-side firms, executing brokers, interdealer brokers, market makers and exchanges using central limit order books.