OREANDA-NEWS. July 20, 2011. ICBC with the highest score has been named "Best Market Maker in Interbank Bond Market for the First Quarter, 2011" at the award programme organized by the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (NAFMII). ICBC was the only market maker conferred with the title, and named again as the "Best Market Maker" subsequent to the "2010 Best Market Maker in Interbank Bond Market" early this year, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

As related by the industry insiders, every three months NAFMII evaluates the performance of market makers in interbank bond market in previous quarter. The evaluation criteria included the compliance of market making transactions, quotation standard, quotation and closing volume. In recent years, ICBC has snapped numerous awards continuously in many occasions as the "Best Market Maker", "Most Market Influential Award", "Excellent Settlement Bank for Counter-Traded Book-Entry Bond", "Excellent Bond Settlement Bank", "Best Derivative Deal". The awards demonstrated the strong presence and rich experience of ICBC in bond trading.

ICBC has attached high importance to grow its bond trading business, said an executive with ICBC. At present, ICBC is the largest commercial bank in the country in terms of investment size and trading volume in China's interbank bond market. Over the past few years ICBC works on the rules and products to drive the innovation on bond trading business. In the innovation of rules, ICBC has established monitoring rules to prevent market making risk and meet the compliance requirements. This provided strong support on the standardization as well as continuous and healthy growth of the business. In the innovation of products, ICBC has been successful in the investment of RMB bonds in interbank bond market on behalf of overseas subsidiaries and concluded the first settlement for overseas subsidiaries, a beginning for overseas subsidiaries and overseas funds (RMB) to enter China's interbank bond market directly.

Beginning from this year, ICBC continues to duly perform its role as a market maker and make improvement on the business. While consolidating its leading position in the market, ICBC also contributes its shares in market liquidity, price discovery mechanism, fast and healthy growth of China's bond market. An example is the market making efforts of ICBC for T-bond in critical period. ICBC quotes prices for all five newly issued treasury bonds in critical period. The Bank has dutifully played the role of a market maker to encourage treasury bonds market making and foster the development of bond market. ICBC will also follow the circulars and rules of regulatory authority and Exchange to actively participate in the preparation of Exchange bonds. One move is to offer more bond investment channels and categories and improve the pricing and profit capability of bonds. Another move is to get more understanding on the Exchange-traded interest rate products in order to pave the way for the participation in the trading of other innovative products in the future.

As related, market maker for bonds is the financial institution accredited by the management authority of the market, that quotes both a buy and a sell price continuously in a cash bond and close deals with other investors using the prices quoted. The market maker has the obligation to maintain liquidity in the market and enjoys respective rights in return. Judging from the development of international bond market, most bond deals are conducted over the counter. Market maker stays at the "core" in the over-the-counter (OTC) market, playing the role to encourage deals and stabilize the market. The open, orderly and competitive quotation-driven mechanism of market making system is an effective mean to ensure efficient bond trading, higher market liquidity and stable market operation, also one of important and fundamental systems for the effective operation of OTC bond market. China's interbank bond market implemented the market making system since 2001.