Barclays Capital has launched its Bmarkets platform in Germany and Switzerland as it aims to increase its presence in the certificates market.
"Bmarkets is Barclays' entry into a new market segment and builds alongside our existing business where we distribute to distributors and through primary issuance," David Wood, director investor solutions, Europe, told SRP. "As a platform, Bmarkets is a high volume global issuance capability which is targeting active traders of leveraged products."
According to the UK bank, the new platform offers investors the choice to select from the full spectrum of markets, asset classes and investment strategies replicable through certificates in a high-speed trading environment with short execution times and tight spreads.
Uwe Becker, co-head of investor solutions, Europe said that Barclays is marketing Bmarkets around speed, reliability, accuracy and its credit quality as an issuer while promoting its expertise in the German market to becoming a 'one-stop-shop'. "We will equip this retail platform with the technology, industry expertise, trading capacities and the local presence and services it needs to prevail and prosper," she said.
Bmarkets was soft-launched in Switzerland back in May 2009, followed by Germany. It is expected to be rolled out to other jurisdictions in due course.