The platform, which sits alongside and complements the bank’s Autobahn offering, essentially allows Deutsche’s clients to post their own bids and offers into a market and to deal on the resting orders in the system.
The platform was launched internally about two months ago before being beta-tested by certain clients. It is now fully live and Deutsche already has customers accessing it from Europe and the US. It is delivered down the same network as Autobahn, so it’s only a matter of time before it is a global offering. I hear that volumes are already very impressive and are running at levels that would make many multi-bank platforms drool.
According to Ian O’Flaherty, Deutsche’s global head of e-commerce for currencies, DB Marketplace was launched specifically at the request of the bank’s clients. There can be no doubt that its launch poses a massive threat to existing multi-bank platforms, even if Deutsche would never make such a statement.
The bank’s clients have access to what is, to all intents and purposes, a free ECN. And with Deutsche acting as the effective central counterparty, they also don’t have to worry about credit. The platform will most certainly appeal to those traditional buy siders who are more concerned with the explicit rather than the implicit cost of trading, but who realise that, if they can deal on their own price, they will save money.