LONDON, April 27 (IFR) - Swap execution facility trueEX has hired Chris Yoshida, a former head of rates sales at Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, to head sales, marketing and strategy.
Yoshida brings more than 15 years of senior level industry experience to the platform as it gears up for expansion across the US, Europe and Asia and aims to capitalise on rapid growth that has seen volumes surge by 20 times in the last year.
Yoshida will work alongside CEO Sunil Hirani and president and COO Karen O’Connor on the executive team.
“Chris is a game-changer, not only for trueEX but for the industry,” said Hirani. “As market structure pivots to smarter, cross-product solutions, he will help us quickly realise our vision for ‘one-stop shopping’ across derivatives, government debt, swaptions and other correlated products.”
Since its 2012 launch, the dealer-to-client SEF has executed over US$7.3trn of interest rate swaps notional and US$18.9trn in post trade services, such as compression trades.
During the first quarter of 2017, trueEX traded US$3.75trn of interest rate swaps, according to data from the Futures Industry Association, placing it as the number three SEF for the asset class over the quarter. The SEF commanded over 40% of all client notionals executed across the three dealer-to-client platforms over the quarter.
Yoshida said that integrated workflow technologies offered by the SEF should help clients better manage risk across rates products.
As the last standing start-up SEF, trueEX now competes in a market dominated by incumbent brokers and fixed income platforms including ICAP, Tullett, Bloomberg and Tradeweb, which is majority-owned by IFR’s parent Thomson Reuters. TrueEX views innovation in its product breadth as key to building volumes that rocketed the platform to a number two position for market share in SEF-traded interest rate swaps for March.
Yoshida’s appointment comes as US regulators look set to dial down sweeping derivative reforms that force the most vanilla contracts in the US$544trn over-the-counter swaps market to trade on registered SEFs. TrueEX is viewing any relaxation in the rules as an opportunity to further innovate and build market share across the entire rates market.
Already offering swaps trading across 20 currencies, trueEX has expanded to include trading and novation of non-cleared derivatives.
More than 80 buyside clients are trading on the anonymous central limit order book, while 24 dealers are now signed up to provide liquidity. (Reporting by Helen Bartholomew)