LONDON: The UK government postponed a £3bn debt sale after Bloomberg terminals around the world crashed, affecting about 300,000 traders on financial markets.
The Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates the City, said it was monitoring the effect of the Bloomberg crash. A spokesman said: “We are aware of the issue and are monitoring the impact on our firms.”
The Bank of England said its core operations had not been affected by the Bloomberg outage, adding that that the Bank had all the tools needed to ensure financial stability, and to provide market liquidity if needed.
The Debt Management Office postponed a weekly tender of Treasury bills on Friday morning, with maturities ranging from one to six months. In a sign that the City was getting back to normal, the DMO then announced that the sale would be conducted in the afternoon, and bids should be resubmitted. Previously submitted bids were deemed null and void.
The DMO said the postponement would not have funding implications for the government, which could raise money through the money markets.
Bloomberg is the main trading platform for bonds. The outage started about 8.20am BST.
Bloomberg said it was investigating the cause of the outage. It said on Twitter: “There is no indication at this point that this is anything other than an internal network issue.” It added that the service had been restored to most customers.
Approximately 320,000 people worldwide pay about $20,000 a year to use a Bloomberg terminal, Fortune reported last year.
Steve Collins, global head of dealing at asset management firm London & Capital, said the outage was the worst he’s seen in the City in more than a decade.
