AFME / European Primary Dealers Association (EPDA) advocates on behalf of eurozone government bond primary dealers with relevant government and regulatory bodies through dialogue and market best-practices recommendations. AFME / EPDA is a subdivision of the Rates Division, which promotes integration and efficiency within the European government bond market. It addresses primary and secondary issues by facilitating consultation with key market participants, including primary dealers, European Debt Management Offices, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and trading platforms. As an ancillary part of its advocacy efforts, AFME / EPDA provides recommendations for efficient primary and secondary market procedures and promotes best practices in order to support industry standards as an efficient alternative to government regulation.
Key Issues and Initiatives
- Most of AFME / EPDA's current work seeks to maintain active secondary trading of European government bonds through the promotion of an open competitive trading environment. In this context we published the following key documents:
- Harmonisation of the Auction Systems in Europe – Best Practices for Auction Systems: Although at the present time our members understand it may not be possible for a single European auction system to become a reality, they believe that further harmonisation across sovereign issuers' auction practices would lead to increased market efficiency and cost savings.
- Electronic Inter-Dealer Trade Cancellation Procedure: This is a market led initiative which led to a very recent recommendation signed off by AFME / EPDA Executive members who agree to be bound by these rules as soon as they are implemented by the relevant platforms on the market. AFME / EPDA member firms believe this harmonised set of rules should mutually benefit the electronic B2B platforms and the participating dealers across Europe once implemented.
- Toward a Common European T-Bill?: Europe is currently seeing an unprecedented amount of government bond issuance as a result of the current economic and financial markets crisis. In its role as the trade association that represents the leading European government bond dealers, AFME / EPDA seeks to add our input to this discussion in order that policymakers can benefit from the market perspective. If common issuance is to be considered at all in the short- to medium-term, a common T-bill has the possibility of delivering the greatest benefits with the least amount of risks to the markets or the issuers.
- Harmonised Reporting Format (HRF) (outside link - only works in Internet Explorer): This initiative is an example of collaboration with the national treasuries of the Euro area where the industry agreed on a harmonised format for primary dealers to report on their activity in the Euro-denominated government securities market from January 2006 onwards. This harmonised reporting format was developed by the EFC Sub-Committee on EU Government Bonds and Bills Markets in co-operation with AFME / EPDA.
Organisation
Board of Directors
Zoeb Sachee, Citi, Co-Chair
Stanislas de Caumont, Credit Suisse, Vice-Chair
William Scott, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Treasurer
Alessandro Ravogli, Banca IMI
François-Xavier Boutillier, Barclays Capital
Garry Monaghan, BNP Paribas
Nicolas Schilling, Crédit Agricole CIB
Larissa Keown, Commerzbank
Bill Lyons, Deutsche Bank
Tomas Ostlund, Goldman Sachs
Christophe Rivoire, HSBC
Gunter Fluyt, ING
Emanuele Caloia, Jefferies
Michael Serero, J.P.Morgan
Ciaran O'Flynn, Morgan Stanley
Wouter Bod, Natixis
Jay Patel, Nomura
Diego Megia, RBC Capital Markets, Observer
Paul Spurin, RBS
Marc Billy, Société Générale
Paolo Crocé, UBS
Karl-Heinz Riehm, UniCredit
Contact
Sander Schol, Director
sander.schol@afme.eu
+44 (0)20 7743 9352
Mark Austen, Managing Director
mark.austen@afme.eu
+ 44 (0)20 7743 9343