London Stock Exchange-owned MTS Markets has received authorisation as a recognised foreign exchange in Switzerland allowing the buy- and sell-side to trade across the MTS BondsPro ATS (alternative trading system).
As a result of this approval, institutions based in Switzerland will now be able to trade USD denominated corporate bonds across the UK and US.
Under MTS BondsPro, which was acquired by MTS in May 2014, Swiss traders currently have access to an all-to-all electronic order book and have access to a network of 300 dealers and 350 buy-side institutions.
MTS Markets CEO Mark Monahan said, “With liquidity an ever-present issue in the global credit markets, using technology to facilitate cross border flows has become more crucial than ever. “
“By enabling Swiss market participants to trade in MTS BondsPro’s liquidity pool, we continue to further diversify the network for the benefit of the market overall.”
Bond markets have been hit hard by banks reducing their inventory of bonds, leading some operators to seek out new solutions to increase the amount of trading between institutional investors.