• Improves buy-side access to pre-trade information
• Initiative gains broad buy-side support

MTS, one of Europe’s premier fixed income trading venues, has launched an initiative with B2SCAN, an aggregator and search engine of bank inventory, runs and axes for the buy-side, which enhances pre-trade information and efficiency for traders on MTS’s BondVision platform in Europe.

The agreement between MTS and B2SCAN focuses on pre-trade information and automated trade execution, allowing buy-side traders to identify a bank that is willing to buy or sell a particular bond, or list of bonds and then electronically execute their trades on MTS BondVision. The initiative aims to combine the benefits of pre-trade inventory discovery with automated electronic execution and straight through processing.

MTS BondVision also facilitates MTS Credit, which offers a number of electronic venues for the trading of corporate, financial, covered and SSA bonds. The platform gives participants the choice of executing via a broad range of protocols, including request for quote, click-to-trade, as well as the option to trade via a sponsor bank in an order book.

Fabrizio Testa, CEO of MTS, said: “Many participants believe that liquidity in the world’s credit trading platforms has reached a tipping point. The market is looking to forward-thinking technology providers to develop the tools to efficiently make pre-trade information, execution and post-trade data available. We are delighted to have reached this agreement with B2SCAN to deliver an innovative and timely solution that complements the overall MTS Credit offering.”

Frederic Semour, Managing Director at B2SCAN, said: “This agreement leverages B2SCAN’s extensively sourced pre-trade information and search engine with MTS BondVision’s efficient and trusted trading technology and existing wide network of European credit traders. This combination of expertise and technology will enable us to meet the changing needs of an evolving credit scenario.”

Laurent Albert, Head of Global Trading at Natixis Asset Management Finance, comments: “As credit liquidity has grown scarce in recent years, the market has looked to technology providers such as MTS and B2SCAN to deliver the innovation required to tackle this very complex challenge. Enabling the buy-side community to search sell side axes will open up a whole new pool of trading opportunities, significantly increasing our credit trading activity across the board.”

Brett Chappell, Global Head of Trading at Nordea Investment Managers comments: "Electronic trading continues to transform the fixed income landscape as the efficiencies it delivers appeal to participants on both the buy- and sell-side. The partnership between MTS and B2SCAN will further increase efficiency, for buy-side traders, by dramatically cutting down the time it takes them to identify a counterparty for the credit products they want to trade".

Simon Linwood, Head of Credit at MTS, added: “This initiative brings together the pre-trade information housed in B2SCAN with the execution capabilities on a regulated platform with MTS. For us it was a natural decision as both topics are top of the agenda for both our buy-side and sell-side customers”

About MTS:



MTS Group facilitates a number of regulated electronic fixed income markets across Europe and the US that are managed centrally to ensure optimum levels of global harmonisation and consistency. Over 500 unique counterparties trade an average volume of €100 billion each day on these platforms.

The individual companies within the MTS Group are regulated by financial services regulators in a number of European jurisdictions, including Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Italian Ministry of Finance, Banca d’Italia, Consob, Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), and in the United States by FINRA and SEC.

MTS Cash is a comprehensive and professional cash securities trading environment for the interdealer marketplace. MTS cash includes several domestic markets regulated in different jurisdictions enabling primary dealers to access unparalleled liquidity, transparency and coverage.

MTS Repo provides an order-driven market for the electronic transaction of repo agreements and buy/sellbacks in Italy. Agency Cash Management (ACM) is a UK-regulated electronic auction platform that uses the MTS Repo technology to enable cash-rich investors to enter into secured money market investments via the tri-party repo mechanism.

MTS BondVision is a trusted and efficient multi-dealer-to-client electronic bond trading platform, delivering exceptional access for institutional investors direct to market makers. MTS BondVision is accessible in Europe from the Italian and the UK legal entities and in the US through the US legal entity of MTS Group. On the BondVision platform, MTS Group provides institutional investors with real-time pricing and the ability to trade with the major dealers.

MTS Credit provides a variety of electronic execution methods for a wide range of multi-currency non-government bonds, including covered, SSA, corporate and financial bonds. MTS Credit is composed of financial instruments available to trade on both BondVision and MTS Prime.

MTS Swaps leverages existing MTS Group distribution technology to deliver immediate access to a diverse range of liquidity providers through your chosen prime banks.

MTS Data is sourced directly and exclusively from the MTS interdealer market and includes benchmark real-time data, reference data, reference prices and historical data, providing the benchmark data source on the fixed income market.

FTSE MTS Indices are operated by FTSE TMX Global Debt Capital Markets, in which MTS has a minority stake. They provide independent, transparent, real-time and tradable Eurozone fixed income indices, based on tradable prices from MTS. FTSE MTS indices are tracked by (and can be traded via) around 40 ETFs in addition to numerous structured products.

www.mtsmarkets.com