London (UK) – 19 April 2017 – Squawker®, the platform for sophisticated trading communities to execute hedging and capital optimisation transactions on-exchange, today announced the successful completion of the launch phase of its Equity Finance platform, with 6 out of the top 10 global investment banks live, and announced Ian Axe and Derek Bandeen as two new members to its Advisory Board.
Chris Gregory, CEO and co-founder, Squawker, comments: “The European Equity Finance market is currently estimated to trade over €2.5 trillion per annum. With six of the top ten banks live and trading through Squawker, we are already seeing some significant trading traffic over the platform. With a further three of the top ten banks close to completing their deployment projects, Squawker has worked hard to provide the essential support that the Equity Finance community has asked us for.”
The announcement marks a significant shift for Squawker, the facilitator of hedging and capital optimisation transactions. Designed and developed in partnership with the world’s leading investment banks, Squawker’s new platform provides a central hub for the European Equity Finance community to bring the execution of equity hedge trades on-exchange. The solution provides Equity Finance traders with settlement against the three largest equity CCPs and facilitating compliance with their trade reporting, MiFID II and MiFIR regulatory requirements. In addition, Squawker’s solution overcomes several key operational issues that currently restrict and limit trading in certain markets, such as automatic registration of share ownership in Spain.
Ian Axe, the recently-designated CEO of Panmure Gordon, former chief executive of LCH.Clearnet, and previously global head of operations and COO for EMEA at Barclays Capital, and Derek Bandeen, former Global Head of Equities at Citigroup join Squawker’s advisory board.
Ian Axe comments: “The top-tier investment banks are under increasing regulatory pressure for on-exchange transparency and central clearing counterparty (CCP) cleared models across their operations. They are all seeking to implement Straight-Through Processing for Equity Finance to replace the traditional OTC process.”
Derek Bandeen adds: “Squawker’s platform enables the large Equity Finance players to bring their execution of equity hedge trades on-exchange and provides a structure for them to manage their counterparty risk with Central Counterparty clearing.”