Intercontinental Exchange Adds Fixed Income Capabilities to ICE ETF Hub

 

ATLANTA and NEW YORK, December 3, 2019 – Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), a leading operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of data and listings services, today announced it has added new functionality to ICE ETF Hub to support US-listed fixed income exchange traded funds (ETFs). Since launching last week, fixed income primary trades for 17 funds, including the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG) and the iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (LQD), have passed through the system.

 

This new functionality enables authorized participants to submit creation/redemption orders for fixed income ETFs – including those containing domestic and international government bonds, corporate bonds, mortgages and municipal bonds. ICE ETF Hub is an industry-wide, open architecture, primary market platform for ETFs with the objective of creating a more standardized and simplified process for ETF creation and redemption.

 

“This functionality expands ICE ETF Hub’s capabilities to include fixed income ETFs, an area of the market that is expected to double in assets under management over the next five years,” said Ben Jackson, President of Intercontinental Exchange. “This feature also represents a key part of our effort to launch custom basket functionality for the creation/redemption process, helping to open the door to significantly more participation and innovation in the ETF industry.”

 

ICE ETF Hub aims to provide a standardized, automated process for assembling and placing creation and redemption baskets, a feature that offers critical efficiency gains for all market participants. As a result of a recently passed SEC rule, ETFs relying on the rule are permitted to use custom baskets if the ETF adopts written policies and procedures governing the custom process.  ICE ETF Hub will provide infrastructure to support the use of custom baskets in the creation/redemption process.

 

ICE launched ICE ETF Hub in October with support for order taking for US-listed Domestic Equity ETFs. Additional functionality, including support for the assembly of custom baskets and US-listed International Equity ETFs, is planned for 2020.  ICE ETF Hub also plans to establish connectivity next year to ICE Bonds’ trading protocols, including click-to-trade, portfolio auctions and request-for-quote (RFQ) and to other trading venues.

 

ICE ETF Hub is available to all market participants on an open basis, offering flexible access to third party order management systems, trading venues, proprietary software solutions and connectivity firms. For more information about ICE ETF Hub, visit: www.theice.com/etf-hub.

 

About Intercontinental Exchange

 

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) is a Fortune 500 company formed in the year 2000 to modernize markets. ICE serves customers by operating the exchanges, clearing houses and information services they rely upon to invest, trade and manage risk across global financial and commodity markets. A leader in market data, ICE Data Services serves the information and connectivity needs across virtually all asset classes. As the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, the company is the premier venue for raising capital in the world, driving economic growth and transforming markets.

 

Trademarks of ICE and/or its affiliates include Intercontinental Exchange, ICE, ICE block design, NYSE and New York Stock Exchange. Information regarding additional trademarks and intellectual property rights of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. and/or its affiliates is located at http://www.intercontinentalexchange.com/terms-of-use. Key Information Documents for certain products covered by the EU Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products Regulation can be accessed on the relevant exchange website under the heading “Key Information Documents (KIDS).”

 

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 — Statements in this press release regarding ICE’s business that are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements” that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of additional risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see ICE’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, including, but not limited to, the risk factors in ICE’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, as filed with the SEC on February 7, 2019.