TABB Group, Equinix, NYSE Technologies and more…

Financial institutions are investing in technology to lower their total cost of ownership, according to financial research consultancy TABB Group.

Cost of ownership key to financial IT – TABB Group 

Financial institutions are investing in technology to lower their total cost of ownership, according to financial research consultancy TABB Group.

Although TABB estimates IT budgets have decreased 10% this year versus last year, firms are aggressively cutting their costs by offloading their commodity processes and infrastructure. The research document, Reinventing the Capital Markets Infrastructure, indicated that while as much as 75% of IT spending is still internal, half of surveyed firms claim to have reduced hardware expenditures, 35% are increasing spending on data centre hosting and 53% are shifting their budget allocation toward external spending, turning to offshoring, shared services and cloud-based offerings to provide their IT.

The TABB research was based on interviews with 20 capital markets and IT executives at global and boutique investment banks, asset managers, hedge funds, exchanges and electronic trading specialists.

“Data capacity requirements have grown at double-digit rates per annum for years and it shows no signs of abating because clients, counterparties and regulators are demanding ever more granular levels of transparency into financial and operational risk metrics,” said Adam Sussman, TABB Group partner and director of research.

Equinix to build new data centre in Florida 

Data centre service provider Equinix is planning to build a third International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in Florida, to support the Miami metropolitan area and provide overseas connectivity.

Due to open in Q4, the new facility will provide 31,300 square feet of floor space. The Miami area serves as a hub for domestic and international routes. The new facility will be on the lowest latency route to Brazil, which will allow Equinix to serve high-bandwidth events such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup and summer 2016 Olympics in Brazil. It will also allow the company to offer managed hosting and colocation services from its three Brazil-based IBX data centres to serve the needs of customers looking to expand in the region.

“As the seventh-largest economy in the world, Brazil is primed for strong economic and infrastructure growth, making it an attractive country for multi-national investment and expansion,” said Charles Meyers, president of the Americas, Equinix. “The new MI3 data centre in Boca Raton is a strategic addition to platform Equinix offering a gateway to Latin America, which will allow us to better meet the growing demands of our customers in this important market.”

NYSE Technologies and Americas Trading Group look to Latin America 

NYSE Technologies, the commercial technology arm of exchange group NYSE Euronext, and Americas Trading Group (ATG) are offering an order routing and market data platform that provides low-latency access to Latin American trading venues.

Using the NYSE Technologies secure financial transaction infrastructure (SFTI), the network connection is designed to provide the lowest possible latency between New York and Sao Paolo. SFTI users can access ATG’s sponsored access gateways for direct order routing to Latin American exchanges and brokers. Market data from global financial markets is also available to clients in Latin America while Latin American market data can be distributed worldwide.

“With the emergence of Sao Paulo as one of the world’s financial capitals, the increased access to local markets by global investors will enable local buy- and sell-side firms to play a significant role in the further emergence of a global capital markets community,” said Martin Fernando Cohen, CEO, ATG.

ATG uses NYSE Technologies’ managed transaction hub to offer access to local and cross broader order flow between exchanges and brokers in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru. All SFTI customers will have the ability to directly access the three Mercado Integrado Latino Americano (MILA) markets using ATG’s MILA infrastructure.

SunGard Valdi expanded to support listed options 

Financial technology company SunGard has added support for exchange-traded options to its Valdi options risk manager, which helps firms manage their position risk.

Listed options trading volume has risen over the last ten years, according to SunGard. Valdi options risk manager helps options traders and risk managers track their options and underlying positions, monitor profit and loss and analyse scenario risk across a global portfolio of listed options. They can also view their options risk in real time, monitor global options market volatility, filter data to create a customised view of their activities and drill down into options symbols to identify trading opportunities.

The solution also provides market data that is sourced directly from global options exchanges and distributed via the SunGard Global Network, which provides multi-asset order routing abilities. Valdi options risk manager is designed to help reduce upfront investment in technology, minimise futures investment in hardware and infrastructure and lower the total cost of ownership.

“Valdi options risk manager offers a cost-effective, east to use solution to help options traders expand their global footprint and focus on their core options trading activities,” said Russ Chrusciel, head of Valdi options US for SunGard’s Capital Markets business.

ISE releases hosted database 

The International Securities Exchange (ISE) has launched an historical tick database, called the ISE premium hosted database (ISE PhD).

The new service is designed to provide all quotes and trades from all exchanges, US equities level one data, pre-computed implied volatilities and Greeks, full corporate action histories and ISE open/close trade data.

The hosted solution can be used for full tick or time interval back-testing, validating algorithms, pre and post-trade analysis, charting, scanning and time and sales. Users access the offering through a web browser, on a pay as you go pricing model.

“OSE PhD was designed to meet the growing demand for voluminous amounts of historical market data in a straightforward, cost-efficient manner,” said Jeff Soule, ISE’s head of market data.

The ISE is a subsidiary of Eurex, the derivatives exchange co-owned by Deutsche Börse and the SIX Swiss Exchange.

SIX Financial Information adopts Asset Control technology 

SIX Financial Information, formerly known as SIX Telekurs, has completed the first phase of its move to AC Plus, the data management platform provided by financial technology company Asset Control.

The move is intended to support SIX Financial Information’s processing of reference data and position it to effectively manage increasing volumes and complexity of financial information. The firm said it chose Asset Control’s AC Plus for its robust and scalable architecture and its ability to service and maintain all the relevant data sets at a high level of throughput.

“We are sourcing and supplying an unprecedented amount of data to the financial markets and it’s clear that the increased requirements for data we have witnessed in the past few years will only continue,” said Thomas Gross, CEO, CIX Financial Information. “The platform’s processing capacity and scalability effectively future-proofs us against the further growth in data volumes and breadth we are bound to witness.”

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