Societe Generale and J.P. Morgan are among the first tier-one dealers to go live on WeMatch’s US total return swap (TRS) platform, with an additional 14 firms expected to onboard in the coming months.
The platform, which went live in October, allows US dealers to match, negotiate, import, and manage lifecycle and post-trade events on TRS on US equities.
J.P. Morgan’s head of prime finance synthetic trading and financing for North America, Michael DiCesare, says his bank has been a “a long-time supporter of WeMatch” and he was drawn to the US platform as a way to gain greater efficiencies and straight-through processing for his derivatives business.
“This is an exciting step in their journey to leverage technology to reshape the way market participants interact with one another in TRSs,” DiCesare adds.
Elsewhere, Albert Loo, deputy head of sales for global markets at Societe Generale, says he is excited to be part of WeMatch’s “important milestone” and will continue to contribute to the platform’s expansion.
Loo continues: “We’ve worked closely with them on this development and feel this is an important step forward to improve dealing processes on TRSs across the cycle as well as to reinforce our US equity platform operational efficiency.”
WeMatch’s securities finance platform initially went live in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2017 and has so far matched more than $500 billion of interests and currently manages average balances in excess of $35 billion.
On 15 July, WeMatch hit a $20 billion record high on the ongoing balance matched and managed in its securities financing platform.
This balance includes TRSs on both naturals and financing, securities lending on both specials, general collateral, and upgrades/downgrades, and repos.
Joseph Seroussi, co-CEO at WeMatch, comments: “Thanks to the help and input from our first batch of users, our technology has been adapted to the specificities of the US market, where automation is greatly needed to improve heavy manual workflows.
“Our plug-and-play solution offers a lot of flexibility, instantly reducing operating risks and costs.”
In preparation for the US launch, which was disrupted from its initial timeline by the COVID-19 pandemic, WeMatch brought on Jane Mann from FGC Securities, a US broker-dealer, to act as its first US-focused sales representative.
Mann relocated from New York to London for the role but WeMatch co-founder David Raccat tells SFT that he is mulling opening a US office next year to better service state-side clients.
Joseph Seroussi, co-CEO at WeMatch, comments: “Thanks to the help and input from our first batch of users, our technology has been adapted to the specificities of the US market, where automation is greatly needed to improve heavy manual workflows. Our plug and play solution offers a lot of flexibility, instantly reducing operating risks and costs.”
