Moves to tighten the regulation of derivatives dealing in response to the financial crisis have cut both ways for Icap.
From the end of next week, interest rate derivatives trading will have to go through specialised swap execution facilities rather than taking place off-market. Icap already has a market-leading SEF in place, but the uncertainty, and the need to cope with the new regime, has held back trading at its voice broking side and will continue to do so.
Other regulatory moves — to require off-exchange deals to be reconciled daily to limit the chances of one side or another defaulting — will drive business through Icap’s TriOptima post-trade reconciliation service, which has quadrupled its customer base to 800 over the past year.
All