Author: Antony Currie
So you’re still not convinced that multi-bank e-commerce platforms are a nightmare to manage? Perhaps an email exchange between some of BondVision’s owners will help to change your mind.
BondVision is the dealer-client division of MTS, the relatively successful electronic inter-dealer European government bond platform. Earlier this year it took over BondClick, a rival dealer-client platform set up by six banks last year, in what was more a mercy killing than a merger.
BondClick failed because of disputes over strategy between the member banks, its CEO and the staff. Now it seems that some of that appetite for a squabble is rubbing off on BondVision.
On August 15, Deutsche Bank legal counsel Victoria Vohmann sent an exhaustive email to nearly 60 people at over 20 institutions stating the reasons why Deutsche would not be signing the final pre-launch BondVision documents.
At first sight the requests weren’t that unreasonable – seeking greater clarity, mainly – but it came as a shock to some on the receiving end, not least MTS itself. Two days later the firm’s deputy CEO, Mario Spongano, sent a reply to Vohmann and all her cc-ed addressees stating that Deutsche had already “approved a draft of the regulations of the Bondvision Market twice in the past...”