ICAP’s post-trade and risk management arm, TriOptima, has seen double-digit revenue growth over the past three months, where the firm’s other operations have fallen.
TriOptima’s compression and portfolio reconciliation services have benefitted from sweeping regulatory reforms across Europe and the US, and continue to go from strength-to-strength.
The triResolve service for reconciliation has grown 340% in a year with a significant increase from buy-side firms.
New regulations state that OTC participants must reconcile portfolios at certain frequencies, while the service is also used for trade reporting verification.
The other side of the business, triReduce, is a compression service, reducing investors’ credit exposure.
“Our post trade businesses are growing strongly, supported by accelerating demand for risk reduction services,” said Michael Spencer, group chief executive officer of ICAP.
Elsewhere at ICAP, group revenue was down 14% for the first quarter of this financial year.
Combined average daily electronic volumes for the BrokerTec and EBS platforms were US$707 billion, a drop of 10% from the previous year.
ICAP said the volumes remain ‘muted reflecting multi-year lows in volatility in EBS’s major currency pairs and continued internalisation of bank flow’.
Revenue in the global banking division also fell by 19% with a lack of volatility in interest rates and FX affecting the segment.
“In global broking, conditions are still very difficult, and we continue to mitigate these challenges by increasing the flexibility of our operating model, focusing on priorities and delivering cost efficiencies,” added Spencer.
“The group is in the process of progressing a number of multi-year structural projects to enhance the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the organisation which will result in a more efficient corporate structure and more variability in its cost base.
“These will enable ICAP to continue to invest in products and services to drive future growth across the group.”