Startup matching engine for mid-market trading of FX swaps, FX HedgePool, has matched its first transaction associated with international monetary market (IMM) dates with support from BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered.
BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered acted as the credit providers to the buy-side institutions that completed the first match aligned with quarterly IMM dates on the FX HedgePool platform.
The FX swaps matching engine said this initial transaction was a segway into its expansion into offering discrete FX matching sessions based on the quarterly IMM dates as its current offering only supports an end-of-month roll.
The addition of a quarterly IMM offering at FX HedgePool expands its current end-of-month roll and is part of its commitment to sourcing liquidity that is aligned with the monthly and quarterly hedging schedules of buy-side institutions.
The new quarterly IMM option aims to address information leakage and market impact which can occur for buy-side traders during each IMM cycle, said FX HedgePool.
By introducing a single liquidity event for each IMM date for passive hedgers, the matching engine will allow rolls to be automated based on liquidity to avoid risks due to uncertainty for each roll.
“Buy-side traders face the risk, cost and hassle of rolling positions simply to maintain a passive hedging mandate,” said Jay Moore, CEO and founder of FX HedgePool. “As we’ve done with the monthly matching events, creating a safe and reliable marketplace with midmarket matching around the highly traded IMM dates is a natural evolution for us.”
Founded in 2019, FX HedgePool launched its matching engine in January 2020 and earlier this month confirmed it had matched a total of $1.5 trillion in volumes since then.
The firm unbundles liquidity from credit in a bid to eliminate market impact, reduce costs and streamline operations. The platform allows buy-side traders to directly match liquidity with each other, while the sell-side is paid directly for credit to optimise balance sheets