MTS, the London Stock Exchange Group's European electronic fixed income market, will launch a new platform for Euro-denominated non-government debt before the end of 2011, called MTS Credit.
It has been developed in response to proposals issued by the Cassiopeia Committee, which was formed by the French government's economic ministry in an attempt to revitalise the corporate bonds market, which was hit hard by the recent financial crisis.
MTS Credit will offer trading in more than 2,400 investment grade, Euro-denominated corporate, financial and covered bonds. It will operate as a pan-European multilateral trading facility and use MTS' existing BondVision distribution technology, which the firm says will give investors immediate access to a diverse range of liquidity providers from launch, and enable them to optimise trading strategies and meet compliance and risk requirements.
Using the BondVision platform, MTS Credit will have the capabilities to support a range of trading strategies including: an all-to-all order book, where members post and execute orders directly in an order-driven market; request for quote/stream functionality; and executable orders, where clients can click-to-trade on executable quotes provided by dealers.
“From discussions with our clients, it is clear that increased issuance, market volatility and uncertain liquidity have changed the landscape for non-government bond trading in recent years,” said Jack Jeffrey, chief executive, MTS. “In response to specifications put forward by the Cassiopeia Committee, and working closely with the investment community, we are responding to a specific need for an electronic trading venue which offers efficient access to liquidity and price transparency.”
Trading systems provider TradingScreen announced it was developing its own platform in response to the Cassiopeia Committee's proposals in June 2010.