When Lance Uggla, an entrepreneurial bond trader, created Markit back in 2001, he could have had little inkling that it would one day enter the US political spotlight.

Back then, the business had barely a dozen staff working out of a barn in St Albans, or the bottom of Mr Uggla’s garden. Its area of interest seemed dull to most outsiders: Markit collates data from banks on trade flows and prices in the over-the-counter credit world, and sells it back to the market, mostly for valuation purposes.