With COVID-19 this year impeding and curtailing travel and international trade flows, it’s worth noting the segment of global business activity that continues to function at high volumes and without disruption: securities trading. Financial markets experienced exceptionally high volatility in March and April as the pandemic spread but the robust functioning of trading and post-trade processing systems reinforced the industry’s confidence in them.
During this period one of the market’s most impactful post-trade solutions, CTM™用于贸易匹配, saw volumes nearly double compared to 2019 daily averages and hit record levels for US and cross-border equity and fixed income trades. 尽管有这么多的活动, CTM的匹配率一直很高, 证明自动化工具在波动时期的价值.
We’ve come to take for granted this high level of efficiency in post-trade activity -- particularly in trade matching -- over the past two decades. It has helped boost the volume of cross-border as well as domestic trading. With CTM about to turn 20 years old, it’s worth reflecting on the reasons behind this success story.
数字说明一切
I helped launch the service in 2001, so CTM’s anniversary really hits home for me. At the time I knew CTM provided a great service that met an obvious industry need but I never could have predicted it would become the world’s leading post-trade workflow engine.
看看几个关键数字就知道了. 首先是CTM的交易日期匹配率为96%. The share of trades matched on the service today are at this level or above, which is a formidable achievement and a reason trade flows have become so efficient.
第二个数字是2,000, which represents the population of CTM counterparties across the globe, from 52 different markets -- making this the largest user community for any matching service.
The composition of this user base is another notable feature of CTM. 它涵盖了买方、卖方和托管银行. 这个尺寸, depth and breadth means that the CTM community is self-propagating: additional users sign on in order to instantly access their counterparties in both established and growth markets. And this community increases the value of the service by contributing their data and integrating the CTM workflows into their ecosystems.
关键的增强
CTM hasn’t become the industry’s standard by standing still; the service has evolved since its launch in ways that have made it increasingly beneficial to users.
One of the most notable benefits have resulted from its integration with DTCC’s broad suite of institutional trade processing services. A game-changer for the industry came with the combined power of utilizing CTM with ALERT®, DTCC’s central database of account and standing settlement instructions (SSIs). This integration enables users to automatically enrich their trades with the most up-to-date SSIs and account information. 感谢用户的贡献, ALERT contains over 9 million settlement instructions across asset classes and geographic markets. CTM是唯一提供这种集成的匹配服务. Combining this golden-sourced enrichment with matching creates an 保证的权威贸易记录 all settlement parties will be notified with the same instruction – thereby ensuring settlement finality.
我们最新的服务创新, 警报键自动选择(AKAS), 添加免费, 将基于规则的智能浓缩功能引入CTM, helping those clients utilizing it to further streamline and reach a true state of optimal no-touch processing.
CTM还支持全范围的 连通性选项, 包括API, 修复和基于文件的连接, which has accelerated the growth of CTM’s user base by providing a seamless interface with counterparties across all segments and markets irrespective of their size or level of technical sophistication.
一如既往地, we listen to and partner closely with our clients in order to enhance our post-trade offerings in response to their evolving needs. These clients have been clear; they want one platform to manage the entire trade lifecycle, 从贸易协定到最终结算. 因此，我们加强了CTM对美国贸易流的支持, providing clients the ability to migrate their US trade flow volume off of our US domestic service, OASYS, 转到CTM上. This eliminates a redundant platform and additional touchpoint to provide clients with that single central matching engine.
服务行业
While CTM’s features have helped drive the remarkable community uptake of the service over the past two decades, there’s an additional factor that differentiates this service from other solutions and reinforces users’ trust in it. I’m referring to DTCC’s model of ownership and governance: being owned and governed by the industry influences every aspect of how we operate -- from product development and delivery to client support and risk management. The design and continuous improvement of CTM supports not only users’ needs for efficiency but also the industry’s safety and soundness.
In the end it’s the clients we serve who make the best case for CTM and how it has strengthened the global trading system. One of them summed it up recently when he told me that CTM helps him “sleep better at night.“为什么? 因为他知道他的交易第二天早上就会结清.
This article first appeared in Global Investor/FOW on December 15, 2020.