March 26, 2015
This is a very good initiative by Bloomberg. This would reduce the dependency on the existing platforms, help firms consolidate their systems and the model would also help the firms to control their matching rates. The proposed model is moving the activities into a central matching service, hence bringing the point of detection of issues in a trade forward and would improve matching and settlement rates. The transition to the reduced settlement cycle is expected to be smoother.
Bloomberg's initiative to provide full flexibility to the firms to use the central matching service of their choice, and the ability to choose the Matching Service or another service on a per-trade basis will provide, will help the firms test the model well. The firms' investment/expenditure on the system implementation would not take up large portion of the cost at one-go, and that is a welcome change.
This model also has the potential to address multiple issues across the market participants. We support this proposal and request SEC to approve this initiative.