Real-Time Trade Matching

Real-Time Trade Matching (RTTM®) enables dealers, brokers and other market participants to automate the processing of their fixed income securities trades throughout the trading day.

RTTM provides a common electronic platform for collecting and matching trade data, enabling the parties to trades to monitor and manage the status of their trade activity in real time. Through RTTM, the parties can track a transaction from trade entry through to clearance and regulatory reporting.

The result is an immediate confirmation for trade executions that is legal and binding. The confirmation also serves to initiate Fixed Income Clearing Corporation’s (FICC’s) guarantee of trade completion. RTTM is available as a mainframe communications service or through an Internet-based service called RTTM Web.

RTTM provides a common trade capture and matching platform, a single communications pipeline, and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) interactive message format for the entire U.S. fixed-income marketplace. This includes not only U.S. Government and mortgage-backed securities settled through FICC, but also corporate and municipal bonds and Unit Investment Trusts (UITs), which are settled by National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC). Both FICC and NSCC are subsidiaries of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

• Who Can Use this Service

  Members of FICC’s Government Securities Division (GSD) and Mortgage-Backed Securities Division (MBSD) or members of NSCC are eligible to use RTTM. In addition, through FICC’s Executing Firm feature, which permits introducing members to submit trades on behalf of non-FICC members such as institutions and correspondent firms, it’s possible for non-FICC members to benefit from RTTM as well.

• Benefits

  RTTM addresses the industry need for automation, interactive communications and risk mitigation in the traditionally fragmented over-the-counter debt markets. Covering the breadth of fixed income instruments that customers trade, RTTM brings members closer to achieving the many benefits of straight-through processing, including:

  • Reduced execution risk by automating manual post-trade processing procedures;
  • Further risk reduction through centralized trade date matching and the establishment of legally binding confirmations in real-time,
  • Reliable communications and standardized interactive messaging;
  • A cost-efficient consolidated platform that supports all highly-traded fixed income products;
  • A web-based front end allowing members to enter trade-related activity and obtain real-time status information, along with user-friendly search, query, and reporting tools;
  • Specified pool trade matching
  • Exception-based screens, allowing members to focus only on discrepancies rather than on the entire post-trade processing flow;
  • Standardized procedures across fixed income products, minimizing the number of specialized systems and personnel needed to support your operations;
  • Ability to comply with business and regulatory demand for more timely and transparent trade reporting;
  • Full alignment with business continuity plans by providing for the safe storage of trade data; and

• How the Service Works

  Customers can submit their trades upon execution in real-time, exchange trade status messages, access and transmit reports, and cancel or modify trades in RTTM using one of two methods: via RTTM Web, the web-based user interface, or via mainframe-based interactive messages.

  RTTM Web is a web-based interface that serves as a single point of entry, providing transaction management and screen-based error resolution across fixed income instrument types. The application is a secure, browser-based trade entry/management tool that incorporates robust search capabilities, statistical reporting, and exception processing.

  Through RTTM Web, customers can enter trade-related activity and, regardless of input method, obtain the real-time status of all transactions received and/or updated by the RTTM system. RTTM Web’s user-friendly search, query, and reporting tools help members proactively identify and resolve processing exceptions that, left undetected, could lead to costly trade discrepancies.

  Regardless of how trades are submitted, FICC will generate output to RTTM users when trades are compared (whether comparison occurs as a result of matching, or trades are recorded as compared upon receipt). Comparisons generated by FICC evidence a valid, binding and enforceable contract between the trading member counterparties, and also represent the point at which MBSD’s trade guarantee goes into effect.

  RTTM routes compared trades to the appropriate destinations for further downstream processing for netting and settlement and regulatory agencies for price transparency reporting. RTTM also supports trade reporting to TRACE and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB).

  RTTM will send matched NSCC-eligible obligations that qualify for netting to NSCC’s Continuous Net Settlement (CNS) system, Balance Order system or the Trade-for-Trade Accounting system. The vast majority of trades settle in CNS, which nets transactions for each participant and facilitates the book-entry movement of depository eligible securities in a centralized, controlled and automated environment.

• For More Information

  To request additional information, please click here.