How is electronic trading helping break down silos across asset classes and regions, and what benefits does that create for clients?
Danese: Electronic trading helps remove many of the artificial barriers that have historically separated markets. Clients increasingly want to use familiar workflows across different asset classes and regions — whether they are trading US Treasuries, European or Japanese government bonds. By consolidating technology silos and creating more consistent protocols, we can give clients a seamless experience and support faster adoption across markets.
Dale: We see this trend clearly in Europe, with an increasing number of clients running multi-asset execution desks. An individual user may trade government bonds, credit bonds and derivatives across multiple currencies. Our goal is to help link the execution where possible and maintain consistency, while respecting the characteristics of each market. Portfolio trading is a good example. It began in credit, and after working with clients, we extended it into government bonds. The two markets differ, but the underlying workflow is recognisable, which helps clients move across asset classes more confidently.
What are some examples of technology improving connectivity between markets?
Dale: In credit markets, the depth of analytics available to traders continues to evolve. In portfolio trading, we now use real-time iNAV pricing from the ETF that most closely matches a client’s basket of bonds to help guide execution decisions. Our rules-based automated trading solution, AiEX, is another example. It started as a simple efficiency tool, but now it’s more dynamic. It reflects each trader’s interpretation of liquidity and how they want to interact with the market. As we expand AiEX across asset classes, those benefits carry over and become more interlinked.
Danese: On the rates side, we first built strong independent liquidity pools in swaps and European government bonds. The next step was to bring those pools together so clients could execute bonds and swaps in contingent or non-contingent workflows. We have also connected OTC and listed markets. Recently we launched the two-way pricing RFM protocol for bond-future basis trading, using established protocols elsewhere on the platform.
Repo is another example. We integrate swap-based information directly within the repo ticket and we can link execution across markets: allowing clients to launch a swap-hedging trade based on an executed repo trade with the same maturity and cash notional.
How is greater cross-market integration changing how liquidity is managed on the Tradeweb platform?
Danese: As markets become more interlinked, we can use data more effectively to help clients anticipate where the best price may come from — and under which trading protocol. Liquidity is dynamic and often subjective. By combining data across markets, we can help clients make better informed decisions.
Dale: Our wholesale business is a major source of liquidity, particularly through our Sweep session-trading. With the SNAP IOI protocol, we connect that wholesale liquidity directly to institutional clients. More broadly, liquidity requires a flexible toolkit. Clients can choose RFQ, portfolio trading, all-to-all or automated strategies, depending on their objective and market conditions. Cross-asset integration and data make it easier for them to select the right tool at the right moment.
How are emerging technologies shaping the future of electronic trading?
Dale: AI is a major focus. Tradeweb has a vast amount of cross-asset data, and as a near-term step we see that AI will enable clients to query it in a more natural and dynamic way. Ultimately it lowers the cost of curiosity — by allowing clients to quickly pull together data across asset classes, markets and time periods in a way that was previously strenuous.
We see AI as a tool for augmentation and amplification: helping clients use data more effectively rather than replacing their judgement. This will evolve iteratively as we work with clients and respond to their feedback.
Danese: DLT has potential because it addresses long-standing issues between execution and settlement. Today those layers don’t naturally connect: you lose the golden copy of the trade, introduce delays and often rely on offline processes. If we redesigned the system from scratch, we wouldn’t build it this way. DLT offers an opportunity to rebuild that connectivity. We see strong momentum from the ECB, from the UK’s DIGIT programme for on-chain gilts, and from developments in the US around the cash leg and stablecoins.
Pictured: James Dale and Nicola Danese, Tradeweb
