Inter-dealer broker Icap, has announced that from Tuesday 1 April, its fixed-income trading platform BrokerTec will become an official platform for the wholesale trading of Belgian and Dut

Inter-dealer broker Icap, has announced that from Tuesday 1 April, its fixed-income trading platform BrokerTec will become an official platform for the wholesale trading of Belgian and Dutch government bonds.

This enables primary dealers to fulfil their secondary bond market quoting obligations in these markets on the platform. The Dutch State Treasury Agency has announced that it was to open its markets to competing electronic platforms such as BrokerTec, following a similar announcement by the Belgian Debt Agency in January.

John Edwards, director of fixed income sales, Icap Electronic Broking, says: 'Icap is delighted to be offering dealers the opportunity to fulfil their quoting obligations in Dutch and Belgian government debt on the BrokerTec platform. We have worked closely with the dealers and debt management offices to open the European government bond markets and we are pleased that primary dealers will have real choice over where they trade for the first time. We are working with other government agencies to adopt a multi-platform model and this will be a further step towards a more competitive, liquid and transparent European government bond market'.

The BrokerTec platform is widely installed across Europe, and is used by banks to trade European government bonds and repos. In the European repo market, more than USD275bn per day on average is traded on the platform. Approximately EUR8 bn per day in Belgian repo and EUR9bn per day in Dutch repo is transacted on the BrokerTec platform.

The platform is supported by state-of-the-art technology which is regularly enhanced to ensure the highest levels of reliability and customer satisfaction. BrokerTec's straight through processing application automatically processes trades, allowing for enhanced execution and settlement, while simultaneously reducing costs and inefficiencies associated with traditional paper-based methods.

Icap is the world's premier voice and electronic inter-dealer broker and the source of global market information and commentary for professionals in the international financial markets. The group is active in the wholesale markets in interest rates, credit, energy, foreign exchange and equity derivatives. It has an average daily transaction volume in excess of USD1.5trn, more than 60 per cent of which is electronic. Icap was added to the Ftse 100 Index on 30 June 2006.