Bloomberg Sef success leads to fee criticism

Bloomberg is not exactly a new face in the swaps market, but post-crisis reforms have allowed it to dramatically expand its influence. While its customers will welcome this, detractors claim the company’s terminals business allows it to undercut competitors, and creates an incentive for it to obstruct third-party service providers. By Peter Madigan

For $10, you can buy a nine-piece chicken bucket at KFC, a MetroCard worth four bus or subway rides in New York, a month's worth of cloud data storage or – if you happen to have a Bloomberg terminal – an interest rate swap of any notional size or maturity.

Admittedly, this is only Bloomberg's per-trade cost – users need to pay a bid-offer spread as well, with clearing costs on top – but it is a tiny fraction of the fees charged by rival swap execution facilities (Sefs), which typically vary