Learning to share the swap market

Asset managers, hedge funds and proprietary trading shops all want access to platforms that currently serve dealers only - a test for rules on impartial access and, potentially, the start of a long-awaited revolution in over-the-counter markets. By Duncan Wood

When swap execution facilities (Sefs) first arrived on the scene, they were wild, rebellious, tattooed upstarts. They stayed out late, they smoked, they put their boots on your coffee table and talked about how they were going to change the world.

Then regulators got to work on them, and they aged quickly. The youthful brio got lost, somehow, in all the agonising about made-available-to-trade, block size thresholds, limit checks, clearing certainty, voice trading, enablement mechanisms, footnote