The new platform, named Galaxy, follows the goal of creating a liquid and transparent market for the exchange trading of corporate bonds on a pan European basis, TradingScreen said.

TradingScreen, the provider of multi-broker and multi-asset class execution management systems (EMS) to the buy side, is developing a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) for European corporate bonds.

The move comes in response to the specifications issued by the Cassiopeia Committee on 26th April 2010.

The new platform, named Galaxy, follows the goal of creating a liquid and transparent market for the exchange trading of corporate bonds on a pan European basis, TradingScreen said. Galaxy will be open to any regulated institutional participant authorized to trade corporate securities in Europe.

The corporate bond trading platform will accept only firm orders and aggregate them in a global order book with prices accessible to all participants. Post trade information and transaction records will be made available publicly. Galaxy will be equipped with a latest generation compliance monitoring system to insure full compliance with regulations.

Clearing of securities traded on the platform will be handled by LCH Clearnet SA, with links to the major International Central Security Depositories (ICSD) and/or European national Central Security Depositories (CSD) for settlement and delivery.

"The buy side and the sell side alike are looking for the next step in terms of efficiency for the large corporate bond market. The current venues are not providing the answers to systemic liquidity issues, the cost of secondary market market-making and the increasing transactional costs. This new venture objective is to rally the participants around a model that dramatically improves the current system and brings benefits to all", Philippe Buhannic, CEO of TradingScreen, said in a release.

The platform will be based around TradingScreen's Software as a Service (SaaS) technology that every day services over 1700 buy side, 900 broker dealers and banks around the world, the vendor said.

TradingScreen clients along with market participants will be able to access the Galaxy corporate bond platform through TradingScreen's range of execution management interfaces including the TradeSmart desktop front-end and TradeFIX, TradingScreen's FIX gateway or any of the leading execution management systems(EMS) or order management systems (OMS) available to the Buy Side and the Sell Side communities.

Melanie Rodier, Wall Street and Technolgy, August, 2010