1 July 2003
Thomson Financial Announces Strategic Agreement with Sun Microsystems to Offer Electronic Trading Solutions
New York and London, June 17, 2003 /CNW/ - Thomson Financial, an operating unit of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC), and leading provider of information and technology solutions to the global financial community, today announced a strategic agreement with Sun Microsystems to provide a low cost package to help the equity trading community participate in FIX (Financial Information eXchange) electronic trading and immediately improve overall business efficiency by driving down trading costs.
The agreement provides a cost effective solution that helps the trading community link electronically to new and untapped trading partners. Thomson Financial's AutEx order routing network will now be accessed using the FIXEdge FIX engine brought to market by B2BITS and Sun Microsystems and in combination with specialised OMS functions developed in conjunction with Thebes.
The shrink-wrapped cost-effective connectivity solution will open up access to a broad community of trade participants, which is expected to be particularly attractive to the buy side for its simplicity to install and operate.
This alleviates the need for the client to purchase, amalgamate and support multiple disparate components necessary for electronic trading. In one FIX appliance a client now receives full FIX functionality including FIX 4.4 and future upgrades, benchmarked to meet the highest volume demands in the market. Users can also run Sun's low cost Linux servers and are supported globally through a 24/7 help facility.
Rob Woodmansey B2BITS Chief Executive says: "Our vision is to enable all financial markets participants to benefit from FIX by delivering the highest quality products and services at a commodity price. This partnership with Thomson Financial, Sun and THEBES has global reach and has resulted in a step change reduction in the time, cost and complexity associated with enabling full FIX connectivity."
Benefits to the client include:
- Quick and easy deployment, with fast integration into client workflow
- Immediate trading, with the package already certified and tested with 150 brokers worldwide
- New mechanism for the sell-side community to capture electronic order flow
- Cost effective automation of manual execution process
- Ability to process a greater volume of transactions
- Overall business efficiency gains from electronic messaging by driving down trading costs
- Low cost rental of FIX Appliance - free upgrade to future FIX releases Access to additional low cost trade support functions, OMS, Alerts, formatting
AutEx will be marketed globally to new segments in the broker
and buy-side communities by all parties. Installation and
integration will be led by THEBES, which can utilize both its
intimate knowledge of equities trading technologies and first hand
experience of the challenges faced by today's investment
communities to ensure that firms are up and running in the shortest
possible time.
Daniel Singer, Director of Strategic Alliances at THEBES says: "We
are helping large and small firms increase profitability by
migrating towards full STP. This tailor made solution enables us to
deliver connectivity to many different clients that were previously
proscribed such a choice due to untenable costs, and put them
firmly on course to maximise the benefits of Straight Through
Processing"
Nigel Woodward, Global Segment Manager for Capital Markets at Sun Microsystems adds: "The FIX Appliance initiative from Sun Microsystems is the combination of our focus on STP functions and our low cost server products, running in this case on Linux. By bundling the B2BITS software with our complete server and distribution capability we are able to provide the global market with the connectivity, which will enable end-to-end electronic messaging, and with it, cost savings. The adoption of the FIX appliance by AutEx contributes vital additional functionality across the network."
"By combining FIXEdge based on B2BITS FIX expertise and Sun's server technologies with Thomson Financial's AutEx order routing capabilities, together with THEBES' market expertise, the strategic partnership will give the market an immediate, straight forward and affordable front office Straight through processing trading solution that improves trading profits," added Tony Booth, Director of Connectivity, Thomson Financial.
About Thomson Financial
Thomson Financial is a US$1.5 billion provider of information and technology solutions to the worldwide financial community. Through the widest range of products and services in the industry, Thomson Financial helps clients in more than 70 countries make better decisions, be more productive and achieve superior results. Thomson Financial is part of The Thomson Corporation (www.thomsonreuters.com), a leading provider of value-added information, software applications and tools to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate training and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. The Corporation reported 2002 revenues of US$7.8 billion and its common shares are listed on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC).
About THEBES
THEBES is a multi service Solutions provider to the Financial Markets. Our aim is to provide integrated technology solutions and professional services to investment firms that creates quantifiable value for their business. Located in London, Milton Keynes and Hong Kong, Thebes champions the benefits of Straight Through Processing, and can be seen around the world actively promoting its future.
About B2BITS
B2BITS was founded with a core belief that financial markets software is a service and this has driven a unique approach to delivering the most complete range of FIX products available. B2BITS has lowered the barriers to electronic connectivity through the introduction of the FIX Antenna range of FIX Engines, providing world beating performance on entry level hardware and across a choice of operating systems. B2BITS has also developed a range of automated testing tools for client testing (FACTS) and self testing (DART, FORM) which dramatically reduce the cost and time associated with enabling new counterparty relationships. B2BITS has offices in London and New York and customers range from the largest sell side brokers through to small hedge fund operations.
Web sites:
http://www.thomsonfinancial.com
http://www.thomsonreuters.com