UBS signs up to Mark-it credit pricing service

UBS Warburg has become the latest bank to feed credit price information into UK-based Mark-it Partners' credit database. In return, it will receive quorum price information for cash and derivatives credit instruments based on information provided by a number of leading banking groups. Like Mark-it’s eleven existing partners, it also gains an ownership option in the company.

“We are seeing an increasing need across a number of our functions for this breadth and quality of data, making our agreement with Mark-it particularly important for our business,” said Sal Naro, global head of credit derivatives at UBS.

Mark-it plans to secure more partnerships with leading credit institutions in the coming months to expand its market coverage, according to the company’s chief executive, Lance Uggla. With ABN Amro, Bank of America, Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney, CSFB, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and TD Securities already signed up, Mark-it’s main negotiations must now take place with JP Morgan Chase.

JP Morgan Chase officials told RiskNews earlier this year that its involvement in supplying Mark-it with price information was linked to the successful agreement to divest to Mark-it a credit derivatives reference entity database (Red) it currently co-owns with two other leading dealers – Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.