Tradeweb has completed the first fully electronic bilateral multi-asset package list trade, made between Citi and the Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC).
The service’s launch follows an extension of UK pension funds’ regulatory exemption from clearing swap trades, announced in early 2025. Those pension funds have since pushed Tradeweb to develop a service allowing them to trade uncleared swaps and cash bonds in a single package, Angus McDiarmid, head of European interest rate derivatives at Tradeweb, told The DESK.
“In the past we have supported uncleared IRS on their own, but it’s not been a major part of our focus. Like everyone else, we expected the market to move mostly or entirely towards cleared swaps,” he added.
The new functionality builds on Tradeweb’s multi-asset package trading services, launched in 2019, which allows clients to trade a combination of cleared interest rate derivatives, inflation and cash bonds in a single package for a single price.
“It’s a slightly more complex extension,” McDiarmid noted. “It’s a little bit more difficult for dealers to quote than a cleared derivative because each of the dealers will have a different collateral agreement with each fund that the manager might be trading on behalf of.”
James McDonald, a credit trader at PIC, commented, “The ability to execute bilateral swap spread trades electronically is a significant enhancement for the market, and our trading operations. [It] brings greater efficiency, transparency, and audit to our hedging process.”
Su Liu, head of GBP rates trading and head of EMEA linear trading for franchise and strategy at Citi, noted that the functionality allows the dealer to “materially improve liquidity provision for our clients trading uncleared derivatives.”
McDiarmid added that the launch of this service is part of a longer uncleared derivatives market innovation roadmap at Tradeweb.
“We plan to build further enhancements for the swaps world. We’re also heading down the route of doing more in the swaptions and cross-currency swaps space,” he said.
“Bilateral trades, or trades that don’t clear at CCP like LCH, Eurex or CME, have to have an added level of detail within the trade request message between the client and the dealer. This is to make sure that every dealer knows exactly who they’re quoting and for what in terms of the credit risk and the terms of their bilateral agreements.”
“It’s an exciting time.”
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