20 February 2007
 

SwapsWire announced record 2006 volumes today.  In 2006, the SwapsWire service confirmed more than one million trade events for the first time - more than double the number in 2005.  In order to handle increased volumes and a broadening product scope, the company intends to increase its headcount by 50% this year. 

In addition to newly executed trades, a "trade event" includes unwinds, option exercises and other changes which occur to trades after they were originally put on the books.  These "trade life cycle" changes require agreement between the parties to the original trade and are often the source of processing problems in manual operations. 

An analysis of volumes shows 74% of trade events in 2006 were new deals, compared to 86% in 2005, highlighting the growing importance of life-cycle events to post-trade automation.  It is very clear that clients are utilizing the additional support provided by SwapsWire for these life-cycle events

Chip Carver, SwapsWire's CEO, said, “We are delighted with the take-up of our services across the market.   Volumes on the buy-side increased by a factor of eight in 2006 and the momentum is continuing in 2007.  Overall, our volume growth is being driven by both an increase in client numbers, and by existing clients using new products and features.”

Equity Derivatives

SwapsWire also celebrated record volumes for Equity Derivative confirmations in January 2007, with a 30% increase over the previous monthly high.   There was record activity in both Share Options and Index Options, reflecting the broad acceptance of the service. Volume in Japan has grown rapidly since the launch in July 2006, with this market now representing around 20% of overall Equity Derivative volume.

There are now 15 dealers and over 30 inter-dealer brokers live on SwapsWire for Equity Derivatives.  Investment Managers managing money for thousands of individual funds using SwapsWire for fixed income products today can automatically receive Equity Derivative trades for confirmation free of charge.   

Mr. Carver said, “We believe there will continue to be an emphasis on Equity Derivatives and we expect to see increases in these volumes.  The letter to the Federal Reserve Bank written last November by the senior management of 17 major dealers demonstrates that the market is committed to improving post trade processing.  We know that SwapsWire users are seeing tangible benefits, with trade date confirmation now commonplace.”

More than 95% of the Equity Options booked on SwapsWire are confirmed within 30 minutes and this percentage rises to over 99.5% after 3 hours.

About SwapsWire

Since 2002, the SwapsWire system has been automating legal confirmation, trade capture, and broker confirmation for multiple OTC derivatives products including interest rate swaps, forward rate agreements, overnight index swaps, caps, floors, swaptions, credit default swaps, and equity derivatives.   Today hundreds of sell-side, buy-side, and inter-dealer broker sites in Europe, Asia and the USA use the system.  

SwapsWire supports trade workflow of all types, with integrated trade-date legal confirmation, avoiding the traditional need to separate trade-date workflow/checkout from legal confirmation.   Workflows supported include:

- Inter-dealer broker STP and confirmation
- Trade Capture
- Legal confirmation
- Prime Brokerage (Give-Up)
- Amendments, terminations, option exercise, corporate actions
- Allocations
- Novations

SwapsWire is owned by a consortium of 21 leading derivatives dealers: Bank of America, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., Barclays Bank, Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank, BNP Paribas, Calyon, Citigroup, IXIS Corporate and Investment Bank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC Bank Plc, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Mizuho Capital Markets, Morgan Stanley, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Societe Generale, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and UBS Investment Bank.

Media Contacts:
Henry Hunter +44 (0) 20 7071 0119
Amy Mihalakis 07970 050 828

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