UBS Offers Electronic Trading for Single-Name Credit Swaps

UBS AG is offering customers electronic trading of credit-default swaps for European sovereign debt and indexes of corporations, a change being made ahead of regulations mandating greater transparency.

Switzerland’s biggest bank is one of the first dealers to allow clients to trade via computer for so-called single-name credit swaps, and is the only one now offering the service, said Kevin McPartland, a senior analyst with Tabb Group in New York. Regulatory changes, not necessarily client demand, created the push for computerized trading, he said.