Blogs

The US ecosystem for swap execution facilities continues to evolve, but not as rapidly as regulators and lawmakers anticipated. Despite the shift to electronic trading, some observers question if swaps trading has reached a new equilibrium. The vision of a buy-side trader sitting in front of a screen with the ability to anonymously click on streaming prices from multiple SEFs could be several years away. However, new liquidity providers could be catalysts for change in market structure, suggested speakers at a recent webinar.

The regulatory overhaul of the OTC derivatives market has brought mandatory clearing and electronic trading to standardized swaps, but many say the market structure is stuck, citing regulatory ambiguity and separate liquidity pools.