ICAP, the world’s leading interdealer broker, announces that iSwap, ICAP's trading platform for OTC interest rate derivatives, has won the OTC Trading Platform of the Year award in the Risk Awards 2012. The awards recognise best practice in the risk management and derivatives markets. This is the first time the OTC Trading Platform category has been awarded.
In 2010 iSwap launched an electronic market for trading Euro interest rate swaps with market maker support, bringing increased transparency and greater efficiency, as well as lower transaction costs to the world’s largest OTC derivative market. iSwap supports Interest Rate Swaps, Spreads, Butterflies, Futures Crosses and Basis Swaps. As of 30 September 2011, iSwap had traded interest rate swaps with a notional value of €600 billion.
In November 2011 ICAP announced that it had received regulatory approval for iSwap Euro Limited to operate a MTF for OTC derivatives. iSwap Euro Limited is operated and controlled by ICAP, with Barclays Capital, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan as investor shareholders. The four shareholding banks support the platform with streaming prices.
Don McClumpha, CEO of iSwap, said: “iSwap has broken new ground in electronic swaps trading and we’re delighted to win this award. It reflects the traction that iSwap has already achieved in the market and the support that our customers have given us”.
In making the award, Risk noted that “the service has quickly established itself as a major artery for ICAP’s euro-denominated interest rate swap business”.
Judged by an editorial panel of senior editors and staff writers, the Risk Awards considered how firms are adapting to regulatory change, their approach to risk management, how they reacted to difficult market conditions, and their overall performance, over the course of 2011. Selection was also based on client feedback.
