Magdeburg, 28 May 2018: The Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB) now uses valantic’s (previously icubic) software solutions for electronic swap trading of derivative financial instruments (swaps) via Bloomberg. This is realised with the innovative and versatile software iQbonds. iQbonds enables the Bayerische Landesbank to fulfil all regulatory requirements according to MiFID II and to realise numerous improvements at the same time. The implementation phase has progressed quickly and smoothly and has been finalised within just a few weeks.
The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2004/39/EC by the European Union (MiFID II) represented a particular challenge for many financial institutions. It includes that Plain-vanilla Interest Rate Swaps must be traded on electronic trading platforms. In order to fulfil all requirements, the BayernLB has compared the solutions of different providers. Eventually, the choice fell on the application iQbonds which has already been in use. Marc Burgheim, Head of the Derivatives Trading department at the Bayerische Landesbank, gives the following reasons for the decision: “iQbonds enables us to meet all regulatory requirements and to realise numerous improvements at the same time. A further critical factor in the decision was the long-term and excellent cooperation with valantic.” Both institutions enjoy a close partnership for more than 15 years. In addition to iQbonds, the focus also lies on iMarket – valantic’s STP platform for an automatic trade processing. This platform does not only support classic bond trading activities but also allows trading many more financial instruments such as FX, ETFs, CDS or swaps.
Dietmar Jakal, CEO of valantic Trading Solutions AG, regards the business as very positive: “We were able to further intensify our customer relationship with BayernLB – one of the leading German financial institutes. We are happy to provide our customer with the reliable and high-performance software iQbonds which could easily be adapted to the requirements of our customer by means of in-house extensions.” Due to the connection of iQbonds and other valantic applications such as iMarket or iSettle, BayernLB benefits from useful comfort features such as individual definable auto-hedge features, multi-level pricing as well as the fast and flexible integration of external pricing sources. At the same time, the software package is characterised by extensively integrated security features such as market data filters, plausibility checks and limit checks. The implementation of the required software into BayernLB’s IT environment went smoothly, as expected, and has been finalised within just a few weeks. An additional remote access for support requests was very helpful during this phase. The Bayerische Landesbank is now able to quote swaps on Bloomberg and to react to requests via the Bloomberg terminal as well as iQbonds’ user interface. Thanks to the service philosophy of valantic Trading Solutions AG, BayernLB does not face any expensive updates – neither now nor in the future.
