Mark Beeston, chief operating officer for credit trading at Deutsche Bank in London has joined credit derivatives STP start-up T-Zero as president.
T-Zero has been incubated by credit trading platform Creditex, and is being spun off into a separate, independent entity. A holding company is being created that will own both Creditex and T-Zero.
The T-Zero platform has been designed to electronically capture and re-direct all trade details, assignments, allocations and other relevant trade details in the processing of credit derivatives. The system will automatically allow counterparties to send affirmed trades to the Depoitory Trust and Clearing Corporation for same-day or T+0 legal execution.
Simon Morris, head of European credit trading at Goldman Sachs - one of a group of bulge bracket investors in Creditex - believes that T-Zero will be a critical factor in the development of the credit derivatives market.
"It will provide much needed automation and operational control in a time when the rapid growth of the credit derivatives market is not just continuing, but accelerating," he says.
The launch of T-Zero comes on the heels of industry and regulatory calls for improving transaction processing in the booming credit derivatives market. The FSA, Bank of England, Federal Reserve and Isda have recently identified operational risks of derivatives and have called for automated solutions to address the problems.
A thirteen-year veteran of the derivatives industry at Deutsche Bank, Beeston believes the T-Zero platform represents a significant step in the maturation of the credit derivatives market: "Attaining operational efficiency is paramount for the credit derivatives market, and T-Zero offers market participants the opportunity to bring significant cost-savings to the operational challenges that the industry is currently facing."
Initially, T-Zero will handle single-name CDS trades and credit index trades, says Beeston. Additional products and further connectivity will be introduced over the course of the next year.