Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch have selected SWIFT to develop and operate a centralised pre-settlement matching solution.

The new solution is set to reduce cost and risk for prime and executing brokers of processing hedge fund trades globally.

Today, discrepancies between trade details submitted to prime brokers by hedge funds on one hand, and their executing brokers on the other, are a source of considerable operational risk.

The brokers have agreed to oversee and provide transparency to the market on the evolution of the project.

Gottfried Leibbrandt, Head of Markets at SWIFT, commented “We are delighted to have been chosen by this group of major prime brokers to provide a pre-settlement matching solution to the equity and fixed income markets, in addition to our existing FX matching capabilities.”