Even as other banks improve their electronic derivatives capabilities, JPMorgan still offers the best. It has now won this award four years in a row, and yet again it is thoroughly deserved.
It has been an exciting year in online derivatives. We are one step closer to a special Fix protocol for futures and options trading, as a new steering committee has been created to give the process some momentum. Deutsche Bank already claims to have built an entirely Fix-compliant trading and clearing system all the way from clients to exchanges, which it says cuts 60 milliseconds off execution times.
A new analytics model called Apama is attracting banks’ interest. It enables clients to build trading strategies using a simple graphic display, and then it analyzes real-time data and instantly responds to it, executing trades according to pre-programmed strategies. Apama is selling the model to banks now for a cool £500,000. It was one of the main reasons JPMorgan, the only bank with the system so far, won the awards for the best exchange-traded derivatives trading category.
Another great breakthrough in online derivatives this year was Barclays Capital’s introduction of live swaps trading on Bloomberg.