Integrate to accumulate

Dealers are touting the benefits of integrating businesses covering different asset classes so they can offer more powerful research, improve capital structure arbitrage opportunities and better customise products to suit client needs. But what’s the real state of integration? By Christopher Jeffery

First came the establishment of a global derivatives platform. Stage two was to merge cash and derivatives. But a number of leading dealers believe the most important step in the evolution of the derivatives market is to merge business units covering different asset classes, such as interest rates, credit, equities, commodities and foreign exchange.

At first sight, the benefits of adopting such an approach appear obvious. The world is changing; clients increasingly want combined asset and