i-Swap, ICAP’s electronic interest rate swaps platform, set a monthly US dollar interest rate swaps (USD IRS) volume record in May of 428 trades worth a notional value of USD17 billion – 23 per cent of all USD IRS trades at ICAP.
Don McClumpha, CEO of i-Swap, says: “Last month’s record is encouraging and demonstrates strong US Dollar liquidity on the i-Swap platform and the evolution toward increased electronification of the wholesale market. We reached these levels with close engagement with our customers and our brokers embracing an environment that is more conducive to electronic trading. In contrast, we executed two per cent of our USD IRS trades electronically in January, the last month prior to the onset of SEF execution level requirements. We thank our customers for their continued support and look forward to seeing i-Swap momentum continue to build.”
Laurent Paulhac, CEO of the ICAP SEF, says: “Execution on i-Swap has grown substantially in recent weeks and on a single day in May, 46 per cent of all USD IRS trades were executed electronically. The positive trend we are now seeing on i-Swap for US Dollar IRS is encouraging and confirms that the successful integration of our voice RFQ (vRFQ 2.0) service with our electronic CLOB (Central Limit Order Book) creates value for our clients. Our regulatory compliant hybrid model combined with the recent launch of our dually regulated global SEF which solves the cross-border liquidity fragmentation issue, is gathering solid support from our global clients. We have more work to do but we are excited about the recent progress.”
