ICAP joins Traiana Harmony Network
ICAP Futures and Options has selected Traiana’s Harmony Network for client connectivity, bringing the number of futures commission merchants on the network for exchange-traded derivatives to 13.
A provider of pre and post-trade solutions, Traiana’s Harmony Network links hundreds of firms in an attempt to increase efficiency and cut the cost associated with maintaining multiple connections.
It will allow futures commission merchants to provide real-time visibility of exchange traded derivatives trades to clients, while also managing the reconciliation and allocation process in real-time.
“As ICAP’s global exchange traded derivative network continues to grow we have selected Traiana to provide straight through processing connectivity direct from our execution platform in order to best facilitate the expanding requirements of our customers,” Gary Pettit, executive managing director of ICAP Futures and Options, said.
TT to establish connection to eSpeed
Trading Technologies International (TT) will introduce connectivity to NASDAQ OMX eSpeed in Q1 2014.
The eSpeed platform operates a central limit order book for electronic trading in benchmark US Treasuries. The TT connection to eSpeed will provide the trading community with a consolidated point of access to fixed income markets, and aims at improving price discovery and providing deeper liquidity.
"We are very excited to announce our plans to connect to eSpeed. This greatly amplifies our fixed income offering and we look forward to working closely with eSpeed to grow our mutual customer base," Mike Burns, EVP of business development at TT, a provider of trading software, said.
The partnership breaks a historical logjam relating to legal proceedings between TT and eSpeed, formerly owned by Cantor Fitzgerald, over patent infringements. NASDAQ OMX acquired eSpeed in July 2013, as the exchange group began to operate the OTC trading platform for benchmark US Treasuries.
Firms would now be able to access eSpeed through internally hosted gateways or TT's TTNET global hosting solution. eSpeed access will also be available to qualified customers through TT's MultiBroker offering.
Meanwhile, cloud provider Xignite will use NASDAQ OMX FinQloud, a cloud-computing platform.
Xignite will leverage the platform for storage and resources used by its market data cloud platform, including financial data APIs, its market data distribution and enterprise data distribution solutions.
"NASDAQ OMX uses the Xignite platform for their NASDAQ Data-on-Demand historical stock quote service, and we have large financial institutions who are using our market data cloud platform to develop private financial data clouds, so the decision to partner with NASDAQ OMX FinQloud was an easy one," Stephane Dubois, Xignite CEO and founder, said.
Ullink FIX supports FIX 5.0 for SEF connectivity
Trading solutions provider Ullink’s connectivity platform, UL BRIDGE, is now compliant with standards protocol FIX 5.0 for swap execution facilities (SEFs).
UL BRIDGE will support all FIX message types and custom FIX extensions for versions 4.0 and 5.0, which has been chosen by the Global Fixed Income Committee for trading between SEFs and banks in credit default swaps and interest rate swaps.
SEFs are part of new OTC derivatives rules in the US that requires OTC contracts to be traded on exchange-like platforms.
“We have worked closely with FIX Protocol since the inception of Ullink in 2001,” Laurent Useldinger, CEO of Ullink, said. “UL BRIDGE has always supported this industry language standard and we are pleased to provide the next generation of FIX to our clients, to improve their trading performance in the OTC swap markets.”
SunGard service to help protect trading firms
SunGard has developed a new service to help trading firms address technology, operational and regulatory risks.
The service applies a methodology to assess the vulnerability of a firm’s trading operations to these risks and measures their potential impact. SunGard then provides a roadmap of actions to help mitigate them.
“Brokerage firms will likely spend over US$15 billion over the next few years in compliance with major regulations affecting the global securities industry,” Dushyant Shahrawat, senior research director, CEB TowerGroup, said.
“Yet, many sell-side firms are not only unsure of how these regulatory changes will impact the trade lifecycle, but are also concerned about how to manage the technology implications.”
Jeffrey Wallis, managing partner and president, SunGard Consulting Services, said: “While financial exposures have been front of mind for trading firms to address, technology, operational and regulatory risk can also negatively impact a firm’s performance.”
Eze Software Group integrates Markit’s TCA
Markit’s Transaction Cost Analysis product is now available in Eze Software Group’s order management system (OMS), providing the buy-side with pre- and post-trade analytics tools.
Eze clients will be able use Markit’s TCA to view pre-trade forecasts alongside open orders in the Eze OMS. Following the trade, customers’ data is automatically processed by the TCA service.
“This integration provides customers with high quality trading analytics and valuable insight into the impact of trades on the market to help them optimise trading decisions and reduce associated costs,” Chris Corvi, director of project management of the Eze OMS, said.
The Markit TCA service is hosted and delivered via a web based user interface.