Tradeweb, a leading over-the-counter multi-asset class online marketplace, today announced that six new dealers have joined its U.S. dollar interest rate swap market. As a result, all nine investing dealers are now actively participating in online U.S. dollar interest rate swap trading on Tradeweb.
This significant commitment to online swap trading by the investing dealers marks the first major move by the consortium since its investment in Tradeweb in January 2008.
The six new dealers joining the U.S. dollar swaps marketplace are: Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS. In total, 15 dealers are now providing U.S. dollar swaps liquidity on Tradeweb. The other dealers already live are: ABN AMRO, Barclays, Bear Stearns, Credit Suisse, Dresdner Kleinwort, HSBC, JPMorgan, RBS and Wachovia Securities.
This swaps trading initiative marries the liquidity of the major swaps houses with the distribution and technology of Tradeweb to provide an unmatched execution venue for institutional clients.
"This is a watershed moment for the swaps market," said Jim Toffey, Chief Executive Officer of Tradeweb. "With the influx of new dealer support, we now expect to see significant growth in online swap trading."
"We’re delighted to work with this elite group of dealers, which represents the vast majority of the liquidity in the swaps market today. This is a win-win announcement for both clients and dealers," said Billy Hult, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Markets at Tradeweb.
"We continue to see significant growth in the use of derivatives and we are supportive of automation that will create economic efficiencies, increase liquidity, and further expand the overall market. Tradeweb is driving such changes, just as it did for the U.S. Treasury business," said Matthew Zames, Global Co-Head of JPMorgan’s FX and Rates Trading business.
"Tradeweb has the largest liquidity pool in the swaps market," said Colin Corgan, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Interest Rate Products at Goldman Sachs.
"Online swaps trading provides obvious benefits to clients and is the wave of the future," said Nick Brophy, Managing Director at Merrill Lynch.
Institutional clients are able to trade Outright Swaps, Swaps Spreads versus Treasuries, and Curve Trades on Tradeweb’s U.S. dollar swaps platform, which provides superior pricing and middle and back-office efficiencies.
U.S. dollar swap trading was initially launched on Tradeweb in 2005, and since then has seen trading volumes climb by more than 450% (Jan 2008 vs Jan 2006). The expansion of online swap trading on Tradeweb reinforces the powerful market position it has established in online Rates trading over the past decade. Average daily trading of rates products on Tradeweb now exceeds $100 billion.*
* January and February 2008 daily average for Rates trading volumes include U.S. Treasury, U.S. Agencies, TBA-MBS, European Government Bonds, U.S. Dollar and Euro Swaps, and OIS.
