When complex trading decisions need to be made fast, the ability to communicate instantly and clearly with others is critical. On financial trading floors, deals have traditionally been carried out by direct voice exchanges – from open outcry to voice trading by phone. Despite the ever-increasing volumes of electronic trades, voice trading is still going strong. Particularly in volatile times, with more complicated deals, traders want to have a conversation with trusted people in order to get real-time advice before committing to a trade – which then may be done electronically. These ‘relationship-based’ deals offer a way for the best traders to provide value compared to automated trading. Traders need to collaborate verbally with multiple parties, and loop-in off-floor support from analysts, researchers, risk managers, economists and private wealth managers to discuss each stage of the trading process. These conversions may be one-to-one or one-to-many, and call groups need to be pulled up and dropped at the touch of a button – no time to dial and wait for connection.
A ‘trader voice’ industry has evolved to service the particular voice communication needs of financial traders. Incumbent trader voice suppliers (such as the dominant market leader IPC Systems Inc., and BT PLC), have made good business from supplying and maintaining proprietary and dedicated technology to trading floors. These companies are increasingly moving from an equipment supply business towards managed services, in which trading firms outsource their trader voice services to single vendor. However, this approach can involve big infrastructure changes and disruption to operations, and can be expensive over the longer term. Client adoption of this approach has been slow. TRADECOM will use a different approach, by providing a solution which is lower cost, lighter-weight, and easily implementable, that can be scaled according to trading floor size and budgets.
To provide the solution to these emerging needs, the project partners, led by Speakerbus, are developing a new generation of IP-based communication solutions aimed specifically at the trading markets. These new products and services will maintain Speakerbus’ vendor and network-neutral approach and provide interoperability with legacy and emerging communications infrastructure and services. This will enable organisations to integrate TRADECOM solutions with best-of-breed services and applications from a variety of vendors. The TRADECOM project is developing and implementing hardware and software product prototypes that will form an innovative business offering to the trader market. This will include:
• The development of a new SIP-based hardware communications turret that includes group telephony services (via a headset) and hoot’n’holler intercom.
• The development of seamless Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) services (Middleware) that improves trader workflow by linking the trading turret to the trader’s desktop computing and display equipment and services.
• Developing scalable and resilient call routing from the trader turrets via cloud-based communication and media servers, including the ability to support the emerging IPv6 communications protocol.
• The integration of a multi-function soft communications turret that enables trader voice services to be replicated and accessed via a web-browser on trader desktops, back-office desktops and mobile devices, for the ultimate in trader mobility.
Well-functioning financial markets are critical to overall economic development at a national and international level. Global finance markets are driven by trades i.e. exchanges of securities (stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, derivatives or any valuable financial instrument). Essential to this exchange is the need for communication between trading parties and access to real-time price and decision support information. Trading floor communications systems enable dynamic and complex communications that supports information gathering, decision-making, negotiation and transaction processing. The TRADECOM products and services will enable IT network planners in Financial Services organisations to respond to traders’ ever-increasing need for instant, secure and flexible multi-party collaboration, while catering to the long-term sustainability and compliance goals for their organizations.
The project deliverables and objectives have been met, giving Speakerbus a new SIP based Hybrid Turret with Touch Screen technology which seamlessly integrates with the centralised management system. Computer Telephony Integration to enhance trader work flow and a resilient / scalable call routing solution. The project has also allowed us to bring to market a soft client application supporting mobility for remote workers, all with the ability to support the emerging IPv6 communications protocol.
