Government debt sale delayed over ‘Bloomberg system issues’
An auction of UK government debt was delayed on Wednesday after a Bloomberg system outage prevented traders from participating.
In a statement the UK’s Debt Management Office (DMO) said: “Due to the ongoing market-wide Bloomberg system issues, the bidding window for this morning’s auction of 4 per cent Treasury Gilt 2031 is being extended.”
A message on the Bloomberg helpdesk said: “We’re currently experiencing a global terminal issue, and our engineering team is actively working to identify and resolve the problem.
“I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience, and we truly appreciate your patience and understanding in the meantime.”
In a statement Bloomberg said: “Our systems are returning to normal operations and Terminal functionality has been restored following a service disruption earlier today.”
The DMO later confirmed the auction of 4 per cent treasury gilts was successfully concluded after the delay. The system was understood to be back online around 90 minutes after the outage. The terminal’s instant messaging function continued to work throughout.
Treasury dependence
“We’ve been told not to trade. I can’t remember this level of non-functioning,” one London-based fund manager told the Financial Times on Wednesday.
The outage raises questions over the Treasury’s dependence on the $28,000-a-year terminal’s functionality to raise government bonds.
Thousands of traders in the Square Mile use the software, which the company describes as “the most powerful, flexible tool for financial professionals who need real-time data, news and analytics.”
The Treasury owns a number of Bloomberg terminals, as does the Bank of England. The system was last hit by a major outage in 2015.