EUROPE – Electronic brokerage agency, Instinet, is expanding its fixed income electronic trading capabilities to include credit products in Europe, in a bid to reflect the rise in issuance and trading in euro denominated products over the past two years.

According to Instinet, the euro denominated eurobond market grew by 33% last year, with total outstandings of €1.8 trillion.
It estimates average daily turnover at €20 billion, with the bulk of this being conducted as a spread trade with an underlying government bond.

Rustam Lam, managing director, Instinet Fixed Income Europe, comments: "The introduction of credit products onto the Instinet platform is another exciting addition to our existing product range and continues to broaden the scale of our brokerage service. We planned to enter the Eurobond market before the year-end and we are delighted to be able to make this announcement ahead of schedule. Traders value the access to real liquidity that Instinet provides. Over the past year, our volumes have doubled in the Euro government bond market and we expect this to continue."

Instinet will initially provide a service in thirteen liquid agency and supranational euro denominated issues and the firm will continue to expand this list in collaboration with its clients.

Instinet already provides a brokerage service in euro denominated sovereign debt and jumbo pfandbriefe.

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