BGC Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: BGCP), a leading global intermediary to the wholesale financial markets, is pleased to announce its first fully electronic Euro Interest Rate Swap transactions over BGC’s hybrid voice and electronic execution platform, BGC™ Trader IRS, which went live on September 1.
BGC™ Trader IRS is an extension of BGC’s proprietary hybrid technology platform, which has already been deployed and successfully utilized in over 50 BGC products across Credit, Rates, Foreign Exchange, Equities and Commodities. The BGC Trader IRS platform incorporates the award winning Volume Match tool, an auction-style functionality which enables customers to transact a wide range of products fully electronically.
Shaun Lynn, President, BGC Partners, said: “The addition of fully electronic Euro Interest Rate Swaps is a key continuation of our strategy to support BGC’s strong voice franchise with the BGC Trader and eSpeed™ technologies. Over the past year, the number of desks offering fully electronic services to our clients has more than doubled.”
Nadim Mourad, Managing Director, Rates Products, said: “BGC’s world-class proprietary technology augments our existing voice services, enhancing our single, deep liquidity pool for Euro IRS. Working closely with our customers we have developed a hybrid platform to increase transparency and efficiency in the Euro IRS market. By offering our clients a choice between fully electronic or broker-managed execution, we are providing them the flexibility to trade according to their preference.”
Philip Norton, Executive Managing Director and Global Head of e-Commerce, said: “ Promoting our customers’ ability to comply with supervisory and regulatory requirements is an additional motivation for BGC to offer fully electronic Euro IRS trading now. The execution of trades is one component from our suite of technology offerings. Additionally we pride ourselves on pre- and post-trade transparency, delivery into central counterparties, and the facility to route transaction data into trade repositories.”