Reuters launches Electronic Interest Rate Swaps trading system

London: Reuters (LSE: RTR), the global information company, has announced the launch of its online brokerage service for Interest Rate and Overnight Index Swaps, called Reuters Matching for Interest Rates.

The new service further consolidates Reuters efforts to become the leading electronic broker for the global Treasury market. Reuters Spot and Forward Foreign Exchange (FX) business was the agency''s earlier successful foray in the electronic trading of derivatives.

With Reuters Matching for Interest Rates, dealers can trade Euro denominated Interest Rate Swaps (IRS) and Overnight Index Swaps (OIS) electronically, over their Reuters Dealing 3000. It will be extended to cover British Pound, US Dollar and Swiss Franc IRS and OIS trading. The service has gone live across Europe with 31 banks signing up for the service and additional banks due to follow.

After its launch across the main European financial centres, the system will be rolled out gradually into North America and Asia as customer demand grows.
The Matching for Interest Rate service provides:

• Market access to real-time executable prices
  
• Anonymity on bids and offers
  
• Protection with timeouts on orders and links to levels of external market references
  
• A secure service, available over Reuters Dealing 3000
  
• Speed, reliability and efficient execution

With revenues of GBP 3.6 billion, Reuters is the world''s largest international multimedia news agency