Overview

AffirmXpress^TM is a single-screen, post-trade affirmation platform that lets front-office and operations staff efficiently review and affirm over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives trades from multiple inter-dealer brokers (IDBs). The service addresses one of the OTC derivatives markets' biggest challenges - accurately capturing trade details upfront.

Trading counterparties that use AffirmXpress will have the option to automatically submit their affirmed trades to DTCC Deriv/SERV, resulting in legal confirmation within seconds of affirmation - streamlining the post-trade process even further.

AffirmXpress supports credit derivatives, including single-name and index credit default swaps (CDS), and tranched index swaps. Future releases may include interest rate and equity derivatives products.

Who can use the service

Inter-dealer brokers.

Benefits

• Reduces operational risk, allowing trading discrepancies to be resolved upfront before issues occur with trade confirmation, payments or collateral.
• Decreases cost by eliminating multiple screens and feeds, and doing away with labor-intensive, error-prone input processing.
• Provides real-time, post-trade information with streaming data feeds, updating traders' screens instantaneously.
• Offers DTCC's secure, resilient infrastructure to provide for the safety and privacy of transactions.
• Provides flexible technology options that allow market participants to connect computer-to-computer, or by a browser-based interface, allowing trade details to be easily sorted or customized.
• Is fully compatible with Deriv/SERV matching and confirmation. Will allow trade data to flow automatically through DTCC's centralized post-trade processes for OTC derivatives, avoiding the need to connect to third-party vendors.

How the service works

Customers can access AffirmXpress through a computer-to-computer connection with IBM's MQSeries real-time messaging, or a browser-based interface. AffirmXpress also offers customers the ability to use an API (application programming interface) if a customer wants to integrate AffirmXpress capabilities into its systems and not use the AffirmXpress interface.

AffirmXpress uses Financial products Markup Language (FpML) as its standard language.

1. An IDB brokers a transaction, and transmits trade data to AffirmXpress.
2. AffirmXpress forwards trade details to each trader. AffirmXpress permits single-sided transactions for its customers in the event there is a non-AffirmXpress party to the transaction.
3. Each trader views transaction details, and either "Accepts" and affirms the trade or places a "Query."
4. Messages flow to all parties showing the status. Trades will either be accepted by both parties as "Done," or cancelled by the IDB if a query is not resolved.
5. A market participant and Deriv/SERV customer will then have the option to send the data from its back-office to Deriv/SERV for automated trade matching and confirmation.

For more information

For more information, please contact Deriv/SERV Relationship Management:
E-mail: derivserv_rms@dtcc.com
New York: +1 212 855 2027
London: +44 (0) 20 7650 1410