Best evaluated pricing service provider/vendor—CanDeal DNA

Product overview—Reference Pricing Service

CanDeal DNA, a division of CanDeal Group, produces data products and services that provide granularity into what is (or was) traditionally an opaque and thinly traded market that experiences a surge in interest and investment in times of increased market volatility. Developed in collaboration with Canadian banks and dealers, the firm’s pricing, security master, trade data and analytics products provide insights and tools that increase global confidence in the Canadian capital markets.

Secret sauce

CanDeal Group partners with the industry to support Canada’s position in the global financial markets. In 2001, CanDeal Markets launched an electronic trading platform for Canadian fixed-income securities. CanDeal DNA Reference Pricing Service was released in 2019. In 2023, CanDeal Benchmark Solutions became the benchmark administrator, with DNA as the calculation agent, for the Canadian risk-free rate: Term Canadian overnight repo rate average (Corra). CanDeal Solutions supports industry and regulatory requirements, including know your customer and anti‑money laundering.

Recent milestones

• Hourly updates between 8am (ET) and 5pm (ET), implemented on T+1
• Launched CanDeal DNA Trademarks with T+0 trades, volume-weighted average price and liquidity metrics
• Launched CanDeal DNA Consensus overnight indexed swap (OIS) and swap rates, providing transparency into short- and long-term interest rates for the fixed leg of a swap, where the floating leg references the Corra
• Launched the CanDeal DNA Eligible Collateral product using Bank of Canada’s standing liquidity facility.

Future objectives

• Use its proprietary data resources and products to enhance insights into the volatility, liquidity, trading and other costs for market participants
• Minimize internal price reconciliation risks and costs with enterprise packages
• Add new tools for securities finance, including publishing prevailing securities lending rates and relative value for total return swaps for the eligible universe of Canadian fixed-income securities
• Increase update frequency to deliver streaming updates for its pricing universe.

Why CanDeal DNA won

Last year, WatersTechnology noted that CanDeal made a bit of history in the 2024 IMD & IRD Awards by winning its first-ever Best evaluated pricing service provider/vendor category, which came hot on the heels of its inaugural win in the corresponding category of the 2023 Buy-Side Technology Awards. By winning this category for the second consecutive year, CanDeal has shown that last year’s success was by no means a one-off, and that its outstanding CanDeal DNA Reference Pricing Service is genuinely market-leading. Yes, there are other evaluated pricing providers that offer broader markets and instrument coverage, but that is not CanDeal’s game. The Toronto-based evaluated pricing specialist focuses exclusively on providing high-quality and transparent prices for large numbers of thinly traded Canadian securities, something it does better than any other provider, hands down. CanDeal looks to be in a particularly good place right now, and surely a third win on the bounce next year is on the cards?