A new electronic swap execution facility (Sef)
run by former Javelin founder James Cawley
and ex-TP Icap broker Christopher Jonns is
growing rapidly in a corner of the rates market
still dominated by voice trading.

Despite the supremacy of e-trading in the
dealer-to-client market, in the interdealer
market, quirks of market structure and broker
incentives have helped phone trading retain a
firm grip on activity. But large banks have
been quietly routing an increasing volume of
interdealer interest rate swap trades to
RTX FinTech, which offers a unique order
book model, order flow improvements and
fee savings.

“The dealer-to-customer market is about 90%
electronic enquiry,” says Jonns. “If you look at
the dealer-to-dealer broker market, it’s zero. We
took our bet that that discrepancy is not going
to exist in the future,” he says.
It also has a unique soundtrack taken from
iconic martial arts video game Street Fighter, in
the hope of appealing to its target audience of
swaps traders..