LONDON, 9 August 2006 – T-Zero, a proven electronic platform dedicated to achieving operational efficiencies in the credit derivatives market, announced today an agreement to provide post-trade affirmation and STP Connectivity for BGC Partners LP, a leading provider of voice and electronic brokerage services to the wholesale derivatives markets worldwide.
The agreement signals the continued growth and strength of T-Zero’s Trade Affirmation Platform, which now hosts a significant number of clients and connected partners, including inter-dealer broker BGC, Bloomberg, numerous banks, buy-side participants, and downstream operations service providers such as DTCC Deriv/SERV and GlobeOp, Calypso and Thunderhead.
In addition, T-Zero expects another five major banks to be using the service shortly, highlighting the huge potential when combined with the present participation of 80 buy-side firms, a number which is now growing almost daily.
Launched in July 2005, T-Zero provides “agnostic connectivity” and the benefits of accurate trade capture to a wide range of market participants, including inter-dealer brokers, buy-side firms, prime brokers and service providers. T-Zero’s established platform will enable BGC to take advantage of these benefits, and give its dealers the ability to execute and affirm efficient bank-to-bank transactions with a real time link to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).
BGC will initially utilise T-Zero’s post-trade technology for CDS single names and CDS Indices and Tranche trades.
Simon Morris, Head of European Credit Trading at Goldman Sachs said “The ability for us to confirm BGC trades straight through to DTCC, via T-Zero’s application, is another big step forward in the automation of the growing credit derivative market”
Mark Beeston, president of T-Zero, said, “The addition of BGC to the T-Zero service is testament to our widening footprint in the CDS market and signals the ever increasing adoption of our platform. BGC’s endorsement provides further evidence that ours is the agnostic solution of choice for leading derivatives participants.”
Philip Norton, Managing Director and Head of e-Commerce at BGC Partners commented: “T-Zero’s post-trade capabilities are now well established in the marketplace. Their dealer support and connectivity means BGC can fully leverage its own relationships with banks and provide greater certainty, transparency and accountability for CDS trades.”
The announcement comes amid calls from regulators to improve operational efficiencies in credit derivatives. Most recently, the New York Federal Reserve convened a group of the 14 largest banks in September 2005 to discuss credit derivative market practices. More recently, former U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan reiterated those concerns calling the backlog of unconfirmed trades “unconscionable” stating that many trades “could be confirmed instantaneously” using available technology.
About T-Zero
T-Zero offers a uniquely flexible post-trade messaging and workflow system for the global credit derivatives market. The T-Zero platform enables communication and electronic affirmation of credit derivative trades on trade date, greatly reducing operational and settlement risks. A truly open communications platform, T-Zero connects market participants including major credit derivatives dealers, hedge funds, asset managers, prime brokers, fund administrators and documentation execution providers. T-Zero is available as part of the Bloomberg Professional service meaning all market participants have easy access to T-Zero’s market leading functionality. For more information about T-Zero, visitwww.tzero.com.
About BGC
BGC Partners is a leading inter-dealer broker, providing integrated voice and electronic services for wholesale market participants worldwide. BGC is active in the global fixed income, interest rate, foreign exchange and derivative markets, offering both telephone and screen-based price discovery, trade execution, straight-through processing and access to electronic trading services from eSpeed Inc. (Nasdaq: ESPD). The firm has offices in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Nyon and Milan. To learn more, please visitwww.bgcpartners.com.
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Contact:
Mark Beeston
President of T-Zero +44 (0) 20 7429 4540
Adrian Thomas
BGC Partners, Director of Communications +44 (0) 207 894 8647