It has been some time since I’d seen Autobahn (the stand alone version, not what runs via Bloomberg or Reuters or whatever) in action. And I’ve not really ever had a good look at what they offer in IRS.

Well I can say I’m quite impressed. It is a single-dealer platform sure, but it really is the best thing out there in terms of functionality for the e-Swaps market place (sorry to tell you SwapsStream) and, along with BARX, product coverage. I’m talking Outright, Curve Spreads, Butterflies, 18 currencies, RFQ, Streaming Click and Trade, Limit Orders. And the best of all? Unwinds. You find the deal (whether dealt on the phone or electronically) you wish to unwind and open a ticket to unwind the swap there and then. Add in trading API, STP and even the simplicity of e-mail confirmations.

Being single-dealer, albeit one of Waratah’s Tier-1 FI e-Trading dealers, is a massive problem. Multi-dealer is undoubtedly what clients such as Hedge Funds and Tier-1 Funds want. But Deutsche Bank are hardly going to invite their competitors onboard, are they? :)

So what to do? Do the likes of LiquidityHub and TradeWeb (sorry to leave you out SwapsStream) simply copy the functionality? No trade mark on what Autobahn does, it simply replicates phone trading in a more efficient manner…the whole point of e-Trading.

Indeed TradeWeb does offer curve trades and butterflies. But it remains a Request For Quote driven government bond platform running on architecture from the late 90’s/early noughties. Although I hear they’re looking to jump on the Request For Stream (RFS) bandwagon after Fusion went ahead late last year.

LiquidityHub appears to want all functionality to fit into the RFS model, which counts out the vast majority of it’s Price Makers from being able to do broken dates, unwinds and also butterflies etc.

Time will tell, but certainly a multi-dealer platform that offers Autobahn-like functionality and products would go down well.