Icap, the world’s largest derivatives broker, has made its biggest step into the derivatives pricing market to meet the increasing demand for transparency, with the launch of a service that takes it into competition with vendors such as Markit and Thomson Reuters.

Icap yesterday launched an online derivatives valuation service that it claims "addresses the growing need for increased transparency and independent valuations allowing better liquidity, counterparty and operational risk management" on behalf of fund managers, banks and corporate treasuries.