About Yieldbroker

Founded in 1999 as a co-operative venture between leading debt market participants, Yieldbroker was established to provide the systems infrastructure, regulatory framework and compliance oversight necessary to facilitate the growth of orderly electronic marketplaces in Australian and New Zealand debt securities and derivatives.

Yieldbroker's dealer-to-client market began operation in May 2001. A free, easy-to-use service, that offered institutional investors enhanced price discovery and superior deal execution, Yieldbroker quickly became the dominant electronic trading platform in the Australian debt marketplace.

Initially built as a simple call-out system in government and semi-government debt securities, product coverage was expanded in 2002 to include AUD denominated corporate, supra-national, agency and sovereign fixed rate securities with FRNs added to the platform in 2004.

An extensive re-build of the trading platform was initiated in 2004 aimed at improving underlying flexibility to enable the system to be customised to meet the evolving requirements of market participants. The release of the Yieldbroker DEBTS trading platform in 2006 allowed an increasingly complex array of financial transactions to be undertaken in a broader range of debt securities and derivatives. The systems enhanced inter-operability also increased Yieldbroker's ability to pursue straight-through-processing solutions.

In 2004 Yieldbroker also became the first fixed income trading platform to be awarded an Australian Market Licence authorising Yieldbroker to operate both a dealer-to-client market and an Interdealer (dealer-to-dealer) market.

The dealer-to-dealer market opened in 2007 with Yieldbroker capturing a substantial share of market turnover in government and semi-government securities and AUD corporate, supra, agency and sovereign fixed rate securities.

Coverage was extended to include FRNs in early 2008 with a swaps and CDS dealing platform currently under development.

2007 also saw Yieldbroker extend coverage into Asia through an interface with Reuter's RTFI trading platform, giving Asian-based institutional investors direct access to the Yieldbroker dealer panel when trading AUD and NZD debt securities.

See key events for more details about Yieldbroker's history.

Yieldbroker is a co-operative venture with ownership shared equally between leading banking participants in the Australian and New Zealand debt markets. The current shareholder banks are ABN-AMRO, Citi, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Macquarie Bank, RBC and UBS. Four further banks - ANZ, CBA, Toronto Dominion and WBC - participate in Yieldbroker as price providers in the dealer-to-client market.

Yieldbroker was established to provide the systems infrastructure, regulatory framework and compliance oversight necessary to facilitate the growth of orderly electronic marketplaces in Australian and New Zealand debt securities and derivatives.

As a shared initiative, Yieldbroker goals are determined in consultation with leading market participants and are focused on generating broad benefits for all debt market users. Yieldbroker's principle objectives are to:

• Develop accessible dealer-to-client trading platforms that foster liquidity, enhance price transparency and provide clients with efficient deal execution in Australian and New Zealand debt securities and derivatives.
• Establish co-operatively owned, low cost dealer-to-dealer platforms across a broad range of debt securities and derivatives to reduce bank transactional costs.
• Encourage straight-through-processing solutions that improve transactional efficiency and reduce operational and compliance costs.

Yieldbroker was the first fixed income trading platform to be awarded an Australian Market Licence authorising Yieldbroker to operate two markets in Australia, a dealer-to-client market and an Interdealer (dealer-to-dealer) market. Like similarly regulated markets, Yieldbroker is overseen by ASIC and reports to ASIC annually on its activities.

Yieldbroker currently operates two markets in Australia, a dealer-to-client market and a dealer-to-dealer market.

The dealer-to-client market is a free, easy to use service that provides institutional investors with enhanced price discovery and superior deal execution in a secure online trading environment.

Investors are provided with unrivalled dealing flexibility, with the ability to view live indicative prices and simultaneously request competitive two-way markets from ten leading pricemakers in over 700 debt securities.

Our comprehensive market coverage includes Australian and New Zealand government and semi-government securities, AUD denominated corporate, supra, agency and sovereign fixed rate securities and FRNs. Further security classes, including inflation linked securities, swaps and credit default swaps are being added in coming months.

Access is free to institutional investors in the Australian and New Zealand debt markets and Asian-based clients are able to access the system through the Reuters RTFI trading platform.

The recently launched dealer-to-dealer market provides dealers with an efficient low cost alternative that has already captured a substantial share of interbank turnover.

Dealers are able to post and execute live prices, anonymously negotiate online and conduct call-outs to other market participants. Coverage includes Australian government and semi-government securities, AUD denominated corporate, supra-national, agency and sovereign fixed rate securities and FRNs.

The co-operatively owned platform is accessible at minimal cost to all banks that are active in the Australian and New Zealand debt markets with 17 banks currently utilising the system.

See markets for more information about trading on Yieldbroker.

For more information about Yieldbroker, you can contact us or click on the following links for:

• key events
• press releases
• frequently asked questions
• recent system upgrades