Wombat acquires Harco and promises clients enhanced market data management

Direct market data feed specialists Wombat Financial Software has acquired Harco Technology Ltd., a market data usage reporting and compliance technology firm. The price was not disclosed. The acquisition of Harco, which services over 70 trading floors worldwide with its Data Access and Reporting Tool (DART), is intended to enhance the Wombat offering by combing Harco’s reporting product line with the Wombat Entitlements System.
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Direct market data feed specialists Wombat Financial Software has acquired Harco Technology Ltd., a market data usage reporting and compliance technology firm. The price was not disclosed.

The acquisition of Harco, which services over 70 trading floors worldwide with its Data Access and Reporting Tool (DART), is intended to enhance the Wombat offering by combing Harco’s reporting product line with the Wombat Entitlements System.

In combination, Wombat and Harco offer users an off-the-shelf exchange entitlements and usage reporting service. It can be bought as a stand alone product, in addition to being implemented in conjunction with the Wombat market data distribution platform or with other common market data platforms.

“The acquisition of Harco makes sense to both Wombat and Harco, and to customers alike. Rather than expending our efforts catching up to what Harco has achieved, we want to continue to move further ahead in areas of the industry that need the most attention,” says Ron Verstappen, CEO of Wombat. “There were so many complementary attributes between the two companies that none of us had any doubts as to it being the right move – and at the right time, too. This acquisition, along with the fact that we had already spent time integrating our products, gives customers a much more complete and integrated solution – in addition to being able to just take components of the entire solution incrementally.”

Stuart Harvey, Harco’s Managing Director, says the merger adds value for clients. “Customers will be able to save both time and expenditures when implementing a solution with our combined products,” he says. Harvey was also keen to emphasize that Harco clients can expect business as usual on its current product set, which will continue to be developed and enhanced.

Wombat says the acquisition comes at a time when many securities exchanges have become more forceful in trying to monetize the value of their market data products, including the possible imposition of significant financial penalties upon those who fail to properly control and report upon usage of their content. As a result, the management of market data and related spend has recently been transformed from a cost control issue to a critical business risk, with the responsibility falling squarely on the CIO and trading heads of management.

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