EBS eFix Matching Hits New High
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: February 18, 2021
CME Group’s EBS says its eFix Matching service saw a series of monthly records in 2020 leading to a new high-water mark for the year.
The service, which allows banks to execute fixing risk ahead of running calculations around the WMR 4pm period, experienced all-time highs of $5.775bn last March, and a year-on-year increase of 21 % on 2019 volumes. The firm adds that already up 25% on this time last year, the platform also had a strong year end after recording $19.7 billion (single count) in November.
“We have witnessed an influx of market participants looking to automate their price fixings,” says Jeff Ward, global head of EBS. “While there has been a general trend towards wanting to minimise human involvement in fixing orders, the pandemic has unquestionably accelerated this shift. As more banks continue to seek out a central solution for fix execution to ensure they better manage their risk, we look forward to continuing to offer a wider array of daily fixes throughout 2021.”
News that more flow is heading through a matching service can be seen as positive news as it may indicate that more orders at fixes are being matched ahead of time, leading to reduced market impact during the five-minute window. Equally, the news may just signify that more flow is heading to the fixes, something that is not universally supported given the challenges faced around price action ahead of, and during, the fixing process.