FIX CITY, a software provider of FIX indication-of-interest (IOI) solutions, has announced that investment banking, securities trading and brokerage firm Bear Stearns has gone live with ioinet, FIX CITY’s IOI distribution product, within its European and US brokerage arms.
ioinet’s customisable web interface enables Bear Stearns to deliver indications of interest in a stock to ioinet’s community of buy-side firms. The move will enable Bear Stearns to broadcast its IOIs and target its distribution to specific groups or individual dealer firms. ioinet can also deliver an IOI FIX feed, to enable IOIs to be fed directly into buy-side firms’ FIX-enabled Order Management Systems for improved Straight-Through Processing, says FIX CITY. Bear Stearns’ European brokerage arm went live with ioinet in June 2006 and the solution was fully implemented to include its US desk during Q4.
Buy-side firms are able to use ioinet’s filters to select messages on specific securities, geographies or sectors, enhancing their ability to sort through incoming IOIs and identify the most appropriate trading partner, says FIX CITY. Buy-side firms are proactively notified upon the receipt of relevant IOIs. ioinet offers the ability for firms to view Trade Advertisements (TAs), indicating actual traded volumes, and IOIs in correlation, showing a trade history to give a more accurate picture of liquidity and assisting buy-side firms in the search for illiquid stocks.
“We selected ioinet due to demand from our buy-side clients for a dynamic way to view IOIs and Trade Advertisements, to make the vast volumes of pre-trade data more manageable,” says Evan Graj, managing director, global electronic trading solutions, Bear Stearns. “ioinet also enables us to actively target our IOI messages to ensure they are received by the most appropriate buy-side firms, speeding up the trading process,” he adds.
“ioinet’s community is rapidly growing as buy- and sell-side firms recognise the benefits,” says Paul Scott, director, FIX CITY. “The solution offers sell-side brokers, such as Bear Stearns, the ability to distribute IOI and TA messages to secure orders and highlight completed trades. ioinet also enables buy-side firms to identify liquidity via the product’s quick and efficient navigation of large volumes of messages,” he continues.