The site that won last year's award is still the best in the market, and it is going from strength to strength. Derek Yates, director of fixed-income swaps e-commerce at UBS Warburg, says that on many days as many clients request prices online as over the phone. The website gives them a real-time overview of swap curves across 14 currencies and provides a way for salespeople to work with clients to identify and explain trade opportunities.
UBS Warburg's interest rate swaps team has been busy. Its members are largely satisfied with their coverage of basic flow business and have created a whole new site that lets them work in-depth with clients on structuring prospective complex portfolio deals. A customer comes to the bank with a general idea for a transaction - for example, it might want to hedge its dollar risk on a set of trades, but wonder how this hedge will fit into the whole portfolio.
During the process of structuring a deal, each client gets access to a highly personalized version of the website. This automatically fills in with information about that client, along with the client's existing interest rate swap portfolio and risk management objectives.