I was chatting to a Hong Kong based colleague earlier this week. As the chat turned to specific countries and their trading habits, he mentioned Korea (South of course!).
Interestingly 30% of the trading in the Bond Market goes via the Korean Stock Exchange. The other 70%? Via YAHOO instant messaging!!!!!
Essentially the salespeople at the six main securities houses send out broadcast messages to the clients with a list of offers, axes etc. The clients react accordingly or do keyword searches when looking for a particular bond or issuer etc. Any efforts by ECN’s to break in to Korea have met with plenty of apathy & a genuine satisfaction in the way things are done now – both sellside & buyside.
I’m not suggesting this as a way forward in Europe, but viva la difference!
Fixed Income E-trading 
January 31, 2007 at 6:04 pm
[…] instant messaging technologies. What sparked this turn around? Good thing you asked! Earlier I read this article on Fixed Income E-Trading: I was chatting to a Hong Kong based colleague earlier this week. As the chat turned to specific […]
February 8, 2007 at 9:04 pm
It sounds like a bit of a club, somewhere where the main participants know each other and pretty much whos holding what bonds, so consequently like to trade in conversational form rather than polling the entire market for a price.
I wonder, did the ecns that have tried to break into the market just try and flog impersonal euro/us style inventory screens and RFQ systems, or did they focus on the benefits of using *their* IM rather than yahoo; and maybe even embed some trading or stp functionality into their IM so it can all still be done conversationally, but with something to calc the variables and capture trade details on the back of it so there is a genuine benefit to be had.
Why would you not suggest that as **a** way forward in Europe??? Surely etrading via IM could hold some appeal to a market that operates in a similar “clubby” fashion. Go on, I.M. a seasoned pro in the Gilts space and see what they think. š
February 8, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Mate, they’d scream out for an “IT jub!” to get this virus off their computer thingy!
Before retiring to the comfy chair in the club for a nice cuban cigar & a lovely drop of port…….
February 12, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Have a look at this story. Equities based algo trading via IM…..not really relevant for FI at the moment, but interesting none-the-less.
http://www.bobsguide.com/cgi-bin/guide/vnewsitem.pl?ID=bg&seq=17753&mode=s&vcode=Pivot
May 15, 2007 at 12:27 pm
[…] into the Reuters Instant MessagingĀ so anyone who’d like to use IM as their gui (such as the South Koreans apparently) can get […]
November 8, 2007 at 3:11 pm
[…] into/within a social network, a catalyst to moving institutional etrading/esales closer to the South Korean model of trading in conversational manner electronically?Ā So take the etrading gui away from inventory […]
November 29, 2007 at 10:22 am
[…] that the Bank of Korea are set to buy 1.5 tr won of govies (Korean)….wonder if they do it via Yahoo messenger as well? […]
April 18, 2009 at 11:41 am
In terms of looking at things like ebay/amazon rather than facebook/twitter, I remember hearing that in the UK the birmingham stock exchange was going to be resurrected, at least that was the headline, a company was actually looking at running a stock exchange for west midlands companies based on the amazon/ebay type models
I think this is the link:
http://www.investbx.com/home/default.aspx