From electronic trading platforms to credit event fixings, inter-dealer broker Creditex regularly sets the pace in the electronic credit derivatives trading. But the market didn't know quite how to take spin-off of its post-trade processing platform T-Zero.
Rival brokers and other service-providers are reserving judgment because T-Zero isn't obviously in direct competition with any of them. T-Zero aims to connect any credit derivatives market participant – dealing banks and their clients, brokers, prime brokers, dealer-to-client platforms, and so on – to the providers of the operational functions, like valuation and documentation services, that get trades done. T-Zero will make sure that assignments, allocations, and other trade details are correct.
As such, it does not see itself as going head-to-head with the likes of DTCC or SwapsWire, which offer confirmation services. "We are not competing with the other vendors," says T-Zero president Mark Beeston, formerly COO for integrated credit trading at Deutsche Bank. "We provide a mechanism to capture trade data accurately and quickly, and deliver it to whichever of the providers you would want to purchase services from. When a dealer and a client both capture a trade, human error can cause problems in documentation, margin management and counterparty credit risk calculations among other issues.