IHS Markit reports it has onboarded the 500th institutional investor to its buy-side InvestorAccess community, the firm’s digital primary market platform.
InvestorAccess first launched in 2017 to meet the sell-side and buy-side demand for electronification and enhanced efficiency in the primary fixed income market. The platform is part of a global offering from IHS Markit, with accessibility reportedly available to all banks.
Pressure has grown to deliver an effective method for electronifying the new bond issuance process, which is heavily manual today, relying on emails, telephone calls and messaging. InvestorAccess has seen solid support largely outside of the US, in which a sell-side consortium has formed DirectBooks, a rival platform.
Buy-side appetite for both platforms will be revealed in The DESK’s Trading Intentions Survey on Monday 12 April.
“As InvestorAccess welcomes its 500th institutional investor to the community, we look forward to broadening our collaboration with firms across primary markets,” said Chris Sztam, SVP and head of the Global Markets Group at IHS Markit. “Primary markets are driven by interoperability and the open exchange of critical information, and with this in mind, we will continue to partner with leading market participants to enable best-of-breed solutions for the entire ecosystem.”
InvestorAccess claims to provide access to more than 95% of the European and 80% of the Asian primary fixed income market, based on its connectivity to 55 banks. IHS Markit has a big drive into the US market, where IHS Markit reports its IssueNet platform is used for 98% of corporate investment grade issuance.
“Using InvestorAccess, all US banks are able to communicate consolidated deal terms to the buyside, providing the same efficiencies that are available in Europe and Asia,” the firm said. “In addition to consolidated deal terms, documentation and updates for primary market deals can be communicated directly from the syndicate desk to the buy side – and can be viewed in a web-based deal calendar, or consumed directly by buy-side systems, enabling a quicker decision on whether to participate in the deal. InvestorAccess can manage the implementation of mandatory terms at each stage of the deal, such as those recommended by the International Capital Market Association at announcement, ensuring that information received by the buy-side is consistent across every deal.”
InvestorAccess also supports electronic communication of orders and allocations between the buy side and sell side. The platform has reported year-on-year growth in orders communicated, with additional growth expected following the completion of the Investor Access/FIX API.
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