War of the terminals: Bloomberg captures Thomson Reuters partner

The trading platform BrokerTec will start providing data next week to Bloomberg for a new service on its terminal which will show benchmark interest rates on Treasuries, interest rate swaps and other financial instruments, people familiar with the plan told the Financial Times.

The aim is to wrest market share from Reuters’ famous “19901” page, from which market players can glean information vital to pricing corporate bonds and other products.

The FT said “the new challenge comes at a sensitive time for Reuters, following the purchase of a majority stake in the company’s financial and risk unit by private equity group Blackstone”.

Bloomberg’s new reference interest rates will be produced from transactions on two electronic trading platforms. BrokerTec will provide it with details of electronic trades in the Treasury market, and Swiss-headquartered Tradition’s platform called Trad-X will provide electronic interest rate swap data.

Reuters’ dominance as the go-to screen for US dollar-denominated interest rate benchmarks dates back two decades. the FT said. Known as 19901 because of the Reuters Eikon terminal page it is posted on, the service has most recently pulled in Treasury trading data from BrokerTec and interest rate swap prices provided by ICAP. 

That three-way agreement is due to come to an end on 29 July and only ICAP has renewed the deal.

Bloomberg’s new service is due to go live on the following day.

Reuters plans instead to use Treasury trading data from Dealerweb, run by Tradeweb Markets in which Reuters is a majority shareholder. BrokerTec will still provide Treasury data to Reuters but it will not be part of the 19901 benchmark service.

“Our clients will continue to have access to the same service and reliable data they always have had from us,” a Reuters spokesperson said.

Traders said the market influence of the 19901 page has declined somewhat in recent years in part because of reforms to the interest rate swaps market that were instituted following allegations that a once-widely used interest rate swap benchmark was being manipulated by traders. Regulators imposed penalties on multiple banks, including fines for JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank earlier this year. 

Regulators now push for benchmarks to place greater reliance on electronic transaction data, less susceptible to manipulation. ■