Swap futures exchange GMEX has signed up electronic market maker Virtu Financial as a liquidity provider as the venue prepares to go live in April this year.
GMEX has been gearing up for launch over the past year through deals with Tradition, Tullet Prebon and Eurex. The agreement with the German futures exchange was a pivotal move from GMEX, allowing the platform to clear through Eurex clearing, while listing its constant maturity swap future on the exchange.
Virtu is a market maker across a range of asset classes, and will provide liquidity for GMEX’s swap future, a new product which tracks the interest rate exposure at each point on the yield curve by removing the expiry date and marking the contract to market against GMEX’s own constant maturity index on a daily basis.
“This decision to expand liquidity provision to GMEX Exchange is a logical extension of Virtu’s business objective to lower costs for both retail and institutional investors by supplying competitive bids and offers, without seeking to take on risky directional positions.” said Douglas Cifu, CEO of Virtu Financial. “The GMEX CMF contract offers an innovative lower margin exchange traded alternative to OTC interest rate swaps for hedging.”