Bloomberg breaks $1 trillion in OTC derivative volume

Bloomberg Fixed-Income Trading executives today announced that they have broken through the $1 trillion mark in electronically traded interest-rate swaps and credit default swaps for 2011.

More than 16,000 trades have been executed on Bloomberg’s Fixed-Income Trading platform so far this year, with 23 dealers and more than 450 buy-side participants, representing a 50 per cent increase in fixed income trading volume over the last year.

“We are setting record-breaking volumes and experiencing remarkable growth, thanks to strong participation from an extensive list of buy-side and sell-side participants,” said Ben Macdonald, Bloomberg global head of fixed-income.

“This success positions us well to be the industry’s leading swap execution facility.”

Bloomberg intends to register with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the US Securities and Exchange Commission as a swap execution facility and security-based swap execution facility respectively, as required by the Dodd-Frank Act. “Our electronic trading tools for over-the-counter derivatives and central clearing links will be the backbone of our SEF offering,” Macdonald said. “Meanwhile, we are still seeing strong growth in our voice confirmation trading.”

Building on Bloomberg’s central counterparty connectivity launch in 2009, all trades executed on Bloomberg FIT can be routed directly to CME Clearing, the Intercontinental Exchange, the International Derivatives Clearing Group and LCH Clearnet Ltd.