Tradeweb Markets is the first offshore trading platform to connect with the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS), to become the main trading interface for offshore investors to access Bond Connect.

The People’s Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on May 16 announced Bond Connect, which will enable investors in Mainland China and overseas to trade bonds in each other’s markets through connection between the financial infrastructure institutions of Mainland China and Hong Kong in respect of trading, custody and settlement. Northbound Trading will commence first in the initial phase, i.e. overseas investors will be able to invest in the China Interbank Bond Market (CIBM). Tradeweb is the first trading platform to offer a gateway for this initiative, which looks to help further open China’s domestic bond market, the third largest bond market in the world.

Eligible overseas institutional investors will be able to trade directly with Mainland Chinese liquidity providers in the CFETS market by utilizing Tradeweb’s user interface to connect to the CFETS trading system. Bond Connect will allow Eligible Offshore investors to discover prices, submit orders and trade permissible onshore debt instruments. Via the connection established in Tradeweb’s fully disclosed request for quote system, investors will be able to send requests to the market for all CIBM cash bonds, removing the need to execute though an agent bank.