More banks sign up to Project Boat

As Mifid-day inches closer, Project Boat gains adherents

More banks sign up to Project Boat Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Dresdner Kleinwort, JP Morgan and Royal Bank of Scotland have all selected Project Boat to provide its pre- and post-trade reporting requirements under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid), which comes into force on November 1.

“We are delighted these key customers have chosen to use the Boat platform in future for their post-trade reporting. This will aid transparency and operational efficiency in the over-the-counter (OTC) equity markets,” says Will Meldrum, managing director and head of Boat at financial services provider Markit.

Under Mifid, all OTC trades in equities in Europe must be reported and published to the market. Boat is a consortium of nine leading investment banks – ABN Amro, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS – set up in September 2006 to create a central platform for the collection, collation, validation, storage and distribution of pre- and post-trade information as required by investment firms operating off-exchange as allowed under Mifid.

Boat is open to all market participants, but it is only now, as firms gear up to comply with Mifid, that the project has gained significant adherents.

“While Mifid is universally seen as a positive initiative by banks that have a strong focus on execution, compliance with reporting requirements [requires] heavy investment, especially in terms of data. By teaming up with the consortium, we will minimise costs and be able to invest more in tailored, client-specific products and services,” said Guillaume Lemarchand, co-head of global execution services at BNP Paribas.