Tencent sets up an online trading platform for Chinese bonds
China’s biggest social media and gaming company has teamed up with a finance start-up to launch QTrade, a service to help traders meet online and negotiate prices
Tencent Holdings is joining forces with a finance start-up to create a system for over-the-counter bond deals, banking on its appeal to the army of traders that already rely on its popular messaging services.
China’s biggest social media and gaming company and its partner launched the service on Friday after almost two years of fine-tuning.
As envisioned, the QTrade service will help traders meet online and negotiate prices. It verifies both parties’ identities and logs their conversations and transactions for at least five years, thus complying fully with securities regulations, said Zhou Jingyu, a co-founder of the start-up registered as Shenzhen Pingguo Shuju Keji in Chinese but does not have an English name.
Internet giant Tencent is potentially offering a way out for brokers grappling with tightening scrutiny from China’s securities watchdog, which from December was banning traders from using individual email and messaging accounts to place orders – their main transaction avenue.
While the government has its own chat system for dealers, more than 70 per cent of bond trades are now conducted over personal messaging accounts such as Tencent’s QQ messaging service, according to the start-up.