Project Neptune pilot goes live
Project Neptune aims to remove stress in fixed income markets
Project Neptune, the fixed income trading initiative between a group of 42 large banks and asset managers, has gone live with its pilot production network, bringing the project closer to its ‘hard’ platform later this year.
Started in October last year, Project Neptune is an industry initiative to address two of the biggest problems in fixed income: the lack of inventory, and the lack of clear, concise information. It aims to do this by creating an open standard network so that banks and investors can exchange controlled and targeted real-time axe and inventory whilst leaving ownership and control with the data providers.
Participants include Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, HSBC and Société Générale, together with asset managers Aviva Investors, Axa Investment Management, Nordea Investment Management and Standard Life Investments, among others, as well as technology partner EPAM Systems.
With the pilot now live, the banks involved in the Neptune Collaboration are sending pre-trade indications to their clients across the Neptune pilot production network. Asset managers will be connected directly to the network via a GUI, their own in-house developed OMS or an external OMS provider. Transition onto a fully hardened production environment, including connectivity to further OMSs, is expected to continue later this year.
“We are pleased that the implementation phase is moving along successfully and the exchange of pre-trade indications between the Neptune participants has started,” said Grant Wilson, partner at capital markets IT consultancy Etrading Software, which is advising Project Neptune. “This success is due to the tremendous support from banks and asset managers for the core principles of Project Neptune – to collaborate together to create an open standard, technology-based, non-profit utility that is execution venue agnostic.”
Wilson left Goldman Sachs in April 2015 to join Etrading Software, and has been working with Project Neptune ever since.
