Thank you John.
An important part of my job as Minister for Financial Services and Regulation is to promote innovation and improved service delivery in the Australian financial services industry.
As you know, my brief is also to help foster the globalisation of the Australian markets.
So it is always a pleasure to be associated with initiatives that help achieve that objective.
I understand that yieldbroker.com is a first for the Australian and New Zealand markets, and is an e-commerce initiative that will help open up the local fixed interest markets to the world.
What makes this an important development is the fact that 4 leading banks have joined forces to provide a worlds‑first service to their institutional clients.
A German, Swiss, American and Australian bank have joined together to provide better access to the corporate and government bond markets. And this can only lead to further expansion of this market -- both locally and internationally.
This is a unique service, as in the the US, electronic trading systems do exist but mainly through private networks rather than via the Internet.
The global bond market is currently valued at $US14 trillion and is significantly greater than the combined market valuations of all the worldÂ’s equity markets, so any landmark initiative such as this is important.
The participants in yieldbroker.com have placed Australia and New Zealand at the cutting edge of service delivery within that global market.
It is a pleasure to be associated with this new system, and I wish yieldbroker.com and all its partners the best of success.