A new electronic trading system for government bonds has been rolled out.

Bloomberg and the Ghana Fixed Income Market (GFIM) launched the Bloomberg E-Bond trading and market surveillance system recently.

GFIM, an organization operating under the Ghana Stock Exchange, acts as the sponsor of the Bloomberg E-Bond system. 

GFIM’s governing committee is comprised of representatives of the Bank of Ghana, the Ghana Stock Exchange, the Central Securities Depository Ltd, the Association of Banks in Ghana, ACI Ghana and Licensed Dealing Members of the Ghana Stock Exchange.

The Bloomberg E-Bond system provides electronic trading and market surveillance tools for participants in Ghana’s USD  7.7 billion (GHS 28.9 billion) fixed income market.  The system will be the primary execution platform for all fixed income trading under newly-established securities exchange, the GFIM. 

“The GIFM was founded by a consortium of financial institutions with a shared vision of a fairer, more transparent and more efficient market for all Ghanaian fixed income securities,” says Mr. Millison Narh, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank in Ghana and Chairman of the GFIM Governing Committee. “The introduction of the Bloomberg E-Bond system is a significant step towards realising that vision and establishing a more credible, globally competitive secondary debt market in Ghana.”

“We are delighted to work together with the GFIM to build a more transparent, liquid and efficient bond market in Ghana. This is the second African market, together with Nigeria, in which we have collaborated with the local market maker community to develop and successfully implement the  Bloomberg E-Bond system, demonstrating our expertise in providing technical infrastructure and solutions to improve the functioning of capital markets across Africa”, says David Tamburelli, Bloomberg’s Head of Emerging Markets Product.

The Bloomberg E-Bond system provides a complete, consolidated marketplace for Ghanaian government bonds, offering market participants a robust and flexible set of tools supporting the full trade workflow.

This includes pre-trade price discovery and analytical tools, the ability to handle both multi-dealer request-for-quote (RFQ) and order trading, straight-through processing (STP) functionality and integrated trade capture and reporting tools.

In addition, market oversight entities and regulators can use the system to review market activity and audit transactions.

Available to subscribers of the Bloomberg Professional service at EBND<GO>, the trading system is fully integrated with Bloomberg’s data, news, analytics and communications tools to provide clients active in the Ghanaian debt market with a single, comprehensive solution.