According to Central Banking, a leading financial publication, one of the important preconditions for Bloomberg to win the Financial Market Infrastructure Services nomination, was the active and productive cooperation between the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) and the company.

The publication highlights the successful launch of a new FX trading platform - BMatch by the NBG and Bloomberg in 2020. Bmatch platform has quickly gained popularity and today the vast majority of FX deals are done in Bmatch.

The increasing competitiveness and even more transparent environment at BMatch has made it possible to significantly narrow the spreads. BMatch currently has the best rates in the interbank market and, most importantly, conducted deals are a good reflection of the ongoing market sentiment. NBG also calculates the official exchange rate based on transactions conducted in BMatch.

Central Banking notes that in addition to BMatch, with the support of Bloomberg NBG has implemented several other successful projects during the pandemic. In particular, the pilot program of primary dealers was introduced and the USD/GEL exchange rate swap line was launched to provide much needed liquidity to the financial system. In response to the liquidity stress caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, a swap line has been launched for commercial banks, microfinance organizations, small and medium sized companies. The international swap line was also signed with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Euro/GEL repo line- with the European Central Bank (ECB).

The publication highlights the fact that the speed at which Bloomberg and NBG were able to configure mentioned new capabilities and platforms was quite remarkable - even more impressive, given the strain all other financial markets were under during this period of Global pandemics.

We would like to remind you that as of today, the National Bank of Georgia, 15 commercial banks, 4 microfinance organizations, 2 Georgian non-banking companies and 1 international investment fund participate in the BMatch platform.