Fintech OTCX and BlackRock’s Aladdin platform have entered a strategic multi-year partnership in a bid to digitise OTC derivatives trading and unify the investment management process.
Specifically, the collaboration will integrate OTCX’s execution venues into the Aladdin platform, to digitise dealer-to-client “voice” derivatives trading and provide clients with a greater variety of options when trading derivatives electronically.
The partnership is expected to address challenges faced by the industry related to over-reliance on manual voice-based workflows in complex derivatives, and provide Aladdin clients with more opportunities to discover prices and execute trades across OTC derivatives.
“Integrating with the Aladdin platform is a pivotal step for OTCX and for the OTC derivatives market as a whole,” said Nicolas Koechlin, chief executive of OTCX.
“Our goal is to give market participants more choice, lower costs, and more efficient workflows in markets that have historically been complex and fragmented. Together with BlackRock Aladdin, we are excited to accelerate the industry’s shift from manual voice trading to seamless digital execution, delivering transformative value for buy-side firms and dealers globally.”
Additionally, the integration aims to enable client access to end-to-end workflow support, ranging from price discovery, request-for-market, execution and post-trade processing.
The partnership follows significant automation and technological advancements in the OTC derivatives space over the last few months. In July, Delta Capita announced that it had launched its new technology platform, Elaris OTC, to automate post-trade processes for OTC derivatives.
The solution, which is powered by blockchain platform operator, Fragmos Chain, is set to reduce operational costs and risk by allowing OTC derivatives trades and lifecycle events to be automatically matched between market participants.