Vega-Chi, a planned multilateral trading facility (MTF) for convertible bonds, has appointed BNP Paribas Securities Services, a division of French bank BNP Paribas, as a post-trade partner.
Vega-Chi, which is awaiting approval from the UK’s Financial Services Authority, plans to offer buy-side institutions trading in around 150 of the largest, most liquid bonds with an aggregate issue size in excess of $100 billion. The MTF aims to aggregate liquidity and improve pricing and transparency in the European convertible bond market.
“Vega-Chi is offering buy-side institutional investors an attractive alternative to the existing OTC telephone-based market,” said Constantinos Antoniades, CEO of Vega-Chi, in a statement. “Our goal is to enable our clients to access a greater pool of liquidity by anonymously trading directly with other institutional investors. This should result in better pricing and a more efficient convertible bond market.”
Alan Cameron, head of clearing, settlement and custody client solutions at BNP Paribas added: “The Vega-Chi platform is to be the first of its kind in Europe and winning this important post-trade mandate is further proof that we are a leading post-trade partner in this segment. The bank has had other recent successes in providing sophisticated solutions to the market infrastructure space, which continues to evolve and become more established in Europe. ”
BNP Paribas Securities Services offers a specific MTF-oriented post-trade facility. The division acts as a post-trade provider for several other alternative trading platforms in Europe, including equities dark pools Pipeline and NYFIX Euro Millennium.