NEW YORK and LONDON, Nov. 21, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: MKTX), the operator of a leading electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities, and the provider of market data and post-trade services for the global fixed-income markets, announced today that Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd (Julius Baer), one of the world’s leading private banking groups, has gone live with a pilot version of MarketAxess’ new order and execution workflow solution, Axess IQ.

Axess IQ is designed to meet the needs of wealth management and private banking community by improving liquidity discovery, execution efficiency and alpha generation across execution operations of firms with large numbers of individual client orders. The connectivity of Axess IQ and the MarketAxess trading network means clients can access unparalleled global fixed income market liquidity with added order management and automation capabilities. Axess IQ offers a unique combination of:

• liquidity and pricing data aggregation to better visualize market depth and inform trading decisions;
• seamless OMS integration and optimised execution efficiency with integration to Auto-X™ automated trading solutions and the all-to-all Open Trading™ marketplace; and
• support for trading a range of diverse credit products including U.S. Investment Grade, U.S. High Yield and Emerging Market hard currency debt as a part of the pilot.

Following a successful implementation period, this new solution allows Julius Baer to streamline and enhance their order workflow and demonstrate best execution by utilizing MarketAxess’ award-winning AI-powered Composite+™ pricing engine for monitoring limit orders and MarketAxess’ Auto-X™ solution for efficient, low-touch automated execution. Axess IQ will be made available to additional clients post the pilot phase.

Stefan Rosskopf, Head of Fixed Income Advisory and Execution with Julius Baer, commented: “Our focus on service orientation and best execution are the pillars of our success at Julius Baer. At a trade execution level, that means ensuring the highest level of operational efficiency, counterparty selection and price discovery for the client. It also means efficiently managing order flow through more automated processes so that our traders can focus on bigger sized or less liquid trades, which many times need special attention or manual intervention. Efficiency means being able to assess and access liquidity across the broadest possible range of credit products and markets, as well as supporting the trader in the counterparty selection. We’ve been very pleased with the success of the Axess IQ pilot so far and look forward to working with MarketAxess further as new functionality and products are added.”

Christophe Roupie, Head of EMEA and APAC with MarketAxess, said: “Execution desks at wealth managers and private banks have very specific needs when it comes to their execution workflow. Working with Julius Baer to deliver the Axess IQ pilot has been an ideal partnership – marrying the sophistication of Julius Baer’s global private banking team with MarketAxess’ leading technology and market data to create the right, tailored solution to those needs. We’re excited about what this launch heralds as we roll out new Axess IQ technology to more clients in 2020.”

About MarketAxess
MarketAxess operates a leading, institutional electronic trading platform delivering expanded liquidity opportunities, improved execution quality and significant cost savings across global fixed-income markets.  A record $1.7 trillion of U.S. investment-grade bonds, U.S. high yield bonds, emerging market debt, Eurobonds and other fixed income securities traded through MarketAxess’ patented trading technology in 2018. The global community of 1,600 firms trading on MarketAxess today include the world’s leading asset managers and institutional broker-dealers. MarketAxess’ award-winning Open Trading™ marketplace is regarded as the preferred all-to-all trading solution in the global credit markets, creating a unique liquidity pool for a broad range of credit market participants.  Drawing on its deep data and analytical resources, MarketAxess enables automated trading solutions and, through its Trax® division, provides a range of pre- and post-trade services and products. 

MarketAxess is headquartered in New York and has offices in London, Amsterdam, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, São Paulo, Hong Kong and Singapore. For more information, please visit www.marketaxess.com.