.jpg)
EquiLend has brought on five new counterparties to its NGT securities finance trading platform, bringing the total number of active user firms to more than 100.
DZ Bank AG, E*Trade, Janney Montgomery Scott, Matsui Securities and TD Ameritrade are the latest to join NGT – EquiLend’s multi-asset class trading platform for securities financing.
NGT, which launched in 2015 and supports all types of securities finance instruments, promises to increase trade-level transparency, improves workflow automation and generate market-wide efficiencies.
Average daily transaction notional on NGT exceeded $80 billion in 2019 across more than 50,000 trades each day from users in more than 30 cities globally, EquiLend says.
Brian Lamb, CEO of EquiLend, describes the NGT platform as “the securities finance industry’s only true trading community” adding that “firms that conduct their trading on NGT reap the benefits of fully automated, algorithmic trading leveraging our artificial intelligence technology”.
According to EquiLend, a recent analysis showed that trades executed on NGT have a far greater matched rate than those booked manually and have less risk of input errors. EquiLend explains that this will support firms in meeting their Securities Financing Transactions Regulation and Central Securities Depositories Regulation requirements.
“We have seen explosive growth in electronic trading in the global securities finance market in recent years as market participants recognise the value NGT brings in workflow efficiency,” adds Paul Lynch, global head of products at EquiLend. “Additionally, especially as regulators are requiring more transparency into market activity, firms are increasingly finding manual, bilateral trading to be a barrier to profitability."
The influx of new NGT clients follows the launch of Swaptimization, EquiLend’s swaps trading platform which went live in December 2019.
It also comes just ahead of what the firm says is a first-of-its-kind collateral trading platform, slated for release later this month.
The platform will bring new efficiencies to the collateral trading process, allowing traders to automate a process that is long overdue for a digital overhaul, EquiLend says.
It covers market discovery, as well as trade execution and post-trade elements.
EquiLend has confirmed that the platform is currently in testing with some of the largest financial institutions in the space.
