Banking co-operative Swift has adapted its Accord matching system to handle the pre-settlement processing of securities trade flows between prime and executing brokers and hedge funds.
Swift won a competitive tender from a coalition of prime and executing brokers - including Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch - to develop the platform in August last year.
The system matches trade and settlement information using the MT515 trade confirmation message, and can be used not only for automated trade-date matching between prime and executing brokers for hedge fund trades, but also for matching between executing brokers for over-the-counter securities trades, and between prime brokers for transition management.
The system went live last month with a subset of pilot participants. The remaining brokers are scheduled to come onstream in the coming weeks. A further wave of executing brokers is expected to join towards the end of the year.
Swift says the brokers may extend the system to match confirmations for additional asset classes, such as securities financing and commodities trades.
Earlier this week, post-trade utility Omgeo and clearing house EuroCCP announced plans to develop a pan-European equities central counterparty (CCP) service for hedge fund transactions. The new service, which will be based on Omgeo Central Trade Manager, is expected to enter pilot testing later this year, with a live launch anticipated in 2010.