Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the biggest custodian of other firms' assets, is planning what it says is the first online market in Europe to make it easier to trade hard-to-value asset-backed securities.
The Internet-based market, known as Structured Credit Connect, will allow banks, asset managers, hedge funds and dealers to buy and sell asset-backed bonds anonymously, according to John Spedding, a London-based managing director at the bank and part of the system's development team. The service will start in the first quarter of 2011, he said.
The system is "like the eBay of illiquid securities," Spedding said. "People won't know who the bidders are but they will be able to see how many people are actively watching the security or how many bidders have put in a price."
