March 16, 2015
I am very supportive of Bloomberg's initiative to offer a confirmation matching service for various reasons:
It will provide an alternative to the Omgeo solution which currently holds a monopoly in this space. Competition drives continuous improvement and keeps prices at market rates.
Bloomberg's reputation as a leader in the financial markets will ensure that a quality alternative will be made available. The integration with their trade order management platform will limit the extra spend to many market participants and therefore increase efficiency and speed to market.
Single point of failure risk reduction- with only one firm currently providing this functionality the risk of market disruption is significant. If they were to experience technical issues over a period of days the settlement cycle could be significantly interrupted. Bloomberg's plan to "interoperate" with other platforms appears to be an excellent step towards reducing that risk.
Regards,
James Connolly
Managing Director
Head of US Broker Dealer Operations
RBC Capital Markets, LLC