Why CurveGlobal? Why not.
By Andy Ross - CEO, CurveGlobal

Having freedom of choice makes the world interesting and exciting. Imagine if everyone wore the same clothes or if you could only order one type of drink from the pub? To make things worse, no choice means no competition – and innovation is a mere fantasy. So, the question isn’t why use CurveGlobal? It’s why not.

For futures markets, keeping your options open is as important as for any other market. Without competition and choice, there is no pressure on fees being charged, not to mention the margin hikes you will experience. These are severe threats to your business model that shouldn’t be ignored. 

I can only speak for myself, but when I was in banking increasing loss of profitability wasn’t something my former bosses would tolerate. But you answer to your investors and shareholders, and are free to stick your head in the sand, twiddle your thumbs like Micawber in David Copperfield, and hope something turns up.

But what’s great about CurveGlobal is that it’s not about the negatives of the current system; it’s about the positive benefits we deliver to the market. We’re providing choice, competition and innovation. Our zero fees, with no surcharges for block or basis trades, and no charge for market data are great examples of the value of competition.

Not only this, but we want to make it easy for futures participants to transition to the new benchmark. We were the first venue to launch three month SONIA futures, along with our Cross Product Inter Commodity Spread (CP-ICS). Price increments in the ICS were also reduced to one tenth of a tick to allow futures execution at OTC prices and achieve better pricing.

Recent research from Acuiti highlighted that participants get the market they want. Current monopolies and inefficiencies of market structure are ultimately a result of participants choosing to half-heartedly support challenger derivatives exchanges. This is not surprising considering that the market's view of challenger venues has largely been that they are a way of forcing incumbents to reduce costs rather than creating genuine, long-term competition. 

The truth is that participants who softly support challenger venues often choose to clear at CCPs whose margin methodologies they disagree with. This doesn't have to be the case. Using venues like CurveGlobal allows you to connect to more than $100bn of member liquidity at LCH, while providing cross-margining to offset your positions in listed products.

When it comes to block trading, participants aren’t happy with the current process already available on listed exchanges – and why shouldn't they?  By trading closer to mid, you can generate considerable savings. If you look at our Adaptive Pricing in the block market, we’re allowing participants to trade between the bid and offer at a price they like, in the size they want. 

The choice is clear – engage by supporting competition and make the market work for you. Don’t just sit around hoping for something to turn up. 

Contact us today to find out how you can step into the future of derivatives trading.