Deutsche Boerse Group is set to welcome Nick Barnes from MarketAxess to become a senior vice president for sales and relationship management for Eurex Clearing.
Based in London, Barnes will focus on Eurex’s buy-side initiative and report to Jonathan Lombardo, head of fixed income derivatives funding and financing sales for Northern Europe.
Eurex’s European sales team is led by Frank Gast, while Philip Simons heads fixed income sales globally.
Barnes makes the move from MarketAxess where he was sales and business development lead for its post-trade repo confirmation tool that connects the buy and sell sides.
He also previously worked at Barclays for 16 years, where he held a number of senior front office roles including government bond repo trader and fixed income sales.
The push for more buy-side participants on Eurex Clearing’s Lending CCP offering has been a priority for the firm for several years now and is widely seen as a critical step in the use of clearing services gaining even wider market acceptance.
Panellists, including Eurex representatives, speaking the Deutsche Boerse Global Funding and Financing Summit in Luxembourg last month were unanimous in highlighting that gaining more buy-side acceptance of central clearing was a top priority for many central counterparties (CCPs).
Speakers noted that in both the US and Europe, the incentives to clear trades beyond what is mandated by regulation is now clear for the sell side, especially for banks acting as agents, but many of the buy side are yet to be convinced.
Eurex secured its first direct buy side member in 2017 when Dutch cooperative pension fund PGGM agreed to lead the way for its market demographic.
Speaking at the time, Roelof van der Struik, investment manager for treasury trading and commodities at PGGM, said: “At PGGM, we believe by connecting to Eurex Clearing, using the full capabilities of EquiLend, the CCP model enables new stock lending structures and business opportunities for beneficial owners as well as helping to manage the rising burden of balance sheet regulation and costs for the securities lending market.”
PGGM went live on the CCP in June 2018 by leveraging Eurex’s ISA Direct service.
As part of the on-boarding, PGGM became one of the first to use EquiLend Clearing Services’ full connectivity offering to access Eurex Clearing’s lending CCP.
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