Courtesy of ETF Strategy
“..MTS, one of Europe’s largest electronic fixed income trading venues, is to launch request-for-quote (RFQ) trading for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) via its multi-dealer-to-client MTS BondVision platform.
The new service will offer liquidity providers access to a diverse community of global institutional investors.
The platform will support ETF products listed on the Borsa Italiana and London Stock Exchange, both of which are owned by the London Stock Exchange Group PLC.
By offering RFQ as a new execution method in addition to the order book trading functionality currently offered by the two exchanges, MTS is seeking to improve the efficiency of executing these products and increase trading opportunities for all market participants..”
Observed John Houlahan, COO of US-based OMEX Systems, the broker-neutral OEMS platform used by leading ETF, option and futures market participants, and provides direct market access to multiple exchanges and liquidity centers, “Hats off to MTS. Even if RFQ is a functionality that fixed-income players as well as institutional equity trading desks are long-accustomed to, and that some of us are already well into next-generation request functionality, from a trading technology industry “business model” angle, the underlying story is clear: niche players offering single-asset class products are kidding themselves if they think that is a sustainable model.”
Added Houlahan, a 20-year veteran of the trading technology space, “MTS certainly seems to recognize that electronic trading for all but the most liquid fixed income products is still at the early stages of evolution and large-scale user adoption. It makes sense to leverage their technology, just as equities systems vendors are now attempting to step into the bond and futures arenas. Those who can overcome not just the technological and regulatory issues, but the political and cultural nuances that distinguish the ways various assets actually trade in secondary markets will be remembered as real pioneers.”