Best Execution - Switching Channels

Lee Sanders, head of execution FX & MM and UK & Asia Fixed Income Trading at AXA Investment Managers explains the move to a new dealing system, and AXA's move to TradingScreen for FX in the latest issue of Best Execution Magazine.

"We will consider an execution management system (EMS) such as TradingScreen because it could provide a breakdown of the market, this snapshot will mean that we only have to go into one system to be able to take prices from any of the 15 or so banks that we deal with. Aggregation makes for punchier prices and more liquidity if it has support from all.

The EMS is more cost effective because it enables direct market access versus an order management system (OMS) which facilitates trades through an intermediary, which can be more expensive and time consuming.

It has five or six different ways we can access fixed income liquidity and it gives us more flexibility in terms of order types than the RFQ (request for quote) protocol that had dominated market structure in the past. The advantage of an OMS is strong compliance but an EMS offers higher levels of granularity in execution control. Other benefits include anonymity and its ability to select execution venues through aggregation, including algorithms and cleaner and better transaction cost analysis (TCA may also be achieved and with potentially better execution)...We have worked with TradingScreen to develop a credible data set that we can distribute internally and also use externally and we would see this as a positive in fixed income as it has been in FX."

Click here to read the interview. 

Best Execution - Summer 2014 Issue - July 3, 2014