Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has employed fixed income software provider AxeTrading and foreign exchange (FX) technology provider Integral to enhance its bond trading offering.
The new solution, which combines the AxeTrader Quoting and Execution Management System (QEMS) and Integral’s BankFX pricing engine, will provide bond trading clients with real-time streaming of FX prices into their bond trading workflow.
RBI said this would offer bond trading clients better pricing in local currency bonds and reducing request for quote (RFQ) response time.
It will also reduce RBI’s risk as a market-maker by automatically hedging the currency exposure of the bond trade and reduce hedging costs on the back of FX execution.
“Our ability to respond fast to our clients’ requests with highly competitive pricing lies at the core of RBI’s market making philosophy,” said Harald Müller, head of group capital markets trading & institutional sales at RBI.
“Therefore, closing the last technical gap between Fixed Income and FX products to provide combined pricing with maximum efficiency, has been a top priority for us.”
AxeTrading and Integral have undergone several partnerships with participants in the last year as the market looks to enhance its electronic fixed income and FX offering.
In June, US securities and commodities broker INTL FCStone expanded its services to support trading in non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) through a partnership with Integral, while the Indonesia Stock Exchange teamed up with AxeTrading in November to deploy an electronic platform for bond trading on the secondary market.
The partnership by AxeTrading with the Indonesia Stock Exchange followed a series A funding round in July led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that saw the firm secure a multi-million investment.