ICAP business

ICAP is the world’s leading interdealer broker and provider of post trade risk and information services.



Voice

Market participants can use ICAP’s broking service to assess trading availability and successfully execute trades. Our voice brokers locate and identify potential trading interest and in so doing create liquidity and facilitate the price discovery process. This is particularly important in markets where there are a wide range of potential transaction types and the number of parties willing to enter certain transactions at any moment may be limited. Customers range from investment banks in our fixed income products to end-user corporates and industrials in commodities.

Our services
We offer voice broking services for a wide range of asset classes including rates, FX, commodities, emerging markets, credit and equities. For each of these asset classes, ICAP has hybrid capability. ICAP defines hybrid broking as providing customers with the choice to enter prices and execute trades electronically, directly via one of ICAP’s electronic trading systems and/or to engage with a broker to identify and help negotiate trades.

Strategy
ICAP’s voice strategy is to extend its hybrid capabilities, to invest in growth markets and seize opportunities as they arise, to expand market share in products where we are not the leader, and to maintain our market share where we are the leader.

Electronic

Markets that are more liquid and have a high degree of consistent buying and selling interest are most efficiently traded on electronic broking platforms. These automated platforms allow users to execute large volumes of deals, quickly and easily. We offer a number of electronic broking platforms, the largest of which are the EBS platform for FX currencies and the BrokerTec platform for G7 public debt securities. Customers range from investment banks, to corporate treasurers, to high-frequency traders.

Our services
We offer pure electronic trading in the FX and fixed income markets including US and European government debt securities, US and EU repos, interest rate swaps, credit and a money market platform for corporate treasury investors.

Strategy
ICAP’s strategy is to grow its global electronic business both through increasing volumes of existing products and by developing new markets.

Read more about the Electronic business here



Post trade risk and information

Our post trade risk and information services help users of financial products to reduce operational risk and overall reduce system-wide risks. This increases the efficiency of trading, reduces costs and thereby creates new trading opportunities which in turn benefits ICAP. Our information business empowers customers to make trading decisions with OTC market information across key asset classes. More than 500 customers use our post trade risk services and more than 3,000 market participants use our information services.

Our services
The post trade risk and information business comprises:
  • the portfolio risk services businesses, Reset, ReMatch and TriOptima which identify, remove, neutralise and reconcile risk within portfolios of derivatives transactions;
  • the transaction processing business, Traiana;
  • the information and data sales businesses.

Strategy
ICAP aims to continue to develop its post trade risk and information business by providing innovative services that enable its customers to reduce costs and risk as well as increase efficiency, return on capital and capacity to process trades.

Read more about the Post trade risk and information business here.

Diagram outlining the process of interdealer broker: