In other news, C. Hoare & Co. is a new Integral client, the Wallstreet Suite moves to 20022, and Kepler Cheuvreux taps CACEIS.
BT and Flexenet Launch Partnership
BT officials can now offer Flexenet Private Wires connectivity “fully integrated with its BT Trading unified communications and collaboration (UCC) platform” via a new partnership between BT and Flexenet.
Officials from both companies report that the new partnership is intended to provide clients with more options for cloud-based trading floor communications.
The Flexenet Private Wires system facilitates private voice communication links among traders on the “trading floors of investment banks, brokers, and hedge funds across Europe, the Americas, and Asia,” officials say. The integration with BT Trading yields “a comprehensive unified communications solution, irrespective of customers’ current voice technology, managed seamlessly as a single package.”
The new integration will help deliver real-time trading for customers globally, officials say.
BT Trading can be integrated with UCC systems from Microsoft and Cisco Systems via private wire services, officials say. The BT system for transactions can be deployed on physical trading floors, and “can be accessed by traders remotely.” The platform includes a suite of applications and devices and can be hosted by firms in their own data centers, by BT, or in a public cloud.
“Trading firms globally are reaching a point where the move to cloud-based platforms is irresistible,” says Phil Swindle, CEO of Radianz and Trading & Command, Business, BT, in a prepared statement.
The interoperability between Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) “in the delivery of private wires is essential as we work through this global technology transition to cloud,” adds Chris Rose, CEO of Flexenet, in a statement. “Customers will have a mix of users across each connectivity model so it’s important they have a solution that can address both.”
C. Hoare & Co. Implements FX Solutions from Integral
The U.K.’s oldest privately owned bank C. Hoare & Co has gone live with cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) foreign exchange technology from Integral, which the bank is using for liquidity aggregation, FX pricing, and distribution via application programming interfaces (APIs), officials say. The bank reports that it offers its customers access to market liquidity and competitive FX rates.
Integral officials report that private banks and wealth managers “are partnering with providers to realize the potential of technology and give their customers the best services without the significant costs of building their own infrastructure.”
For bank, Integral offers FX solutions for trading, liquidity, price engine, distribution, risk management, monitoring and analytics, market data, and white labelling, officials say.
Hoare & Co. was founded in 1672 and has been in the continuous ownership of the Hoare family for 12 generations, officials say.
ION Treasury Migrates Wallstreet Suite to ISO 20022
ION Treasury, a treasury and risk management solutions vendor, has migrated its Wallstreet Suite clients from the SWIFT protocols to the ISO 20022 industry standard, in anticipation of the November 2025 deadline, officials say.
“The current changes to standardization follow decisions by central banks and SWIFT as they fully adopt ISO 20022,” according to ION Treasury.
“The Eurosystem, via its T2/T2S Consolidation project, required TARGET2 EUR payments to switch to ISO 20022 in March 2023. SWIFT, via its Cross Border Payments and Reporting (CBPR+) initiative, is also moving to ISO 20022 over a three-year coexistence period. As a result, interbank legacy SWIFT message type (MT) payments and bank statements will be retired in November 2025,” according to ION treasury’s announcement.
Wallstreet Suite clients can “generate ISO 20022-format payments (instead of SWIFT MT formats) and receive status updates, bank notifications and statements in ISO 20022 formats, according to ION Treasury.
ION Treasury reports that it met with central banks and SWIFT “to discuss the strategy and prepare for these challenging initiatives. These meetings were foundational to developing a solution that allows central banks and other financial institutions to comply with the new standards and ensure the availability of TARGET2 and CBPR+ libraries.”
“These changes parallel initiatives elsewhere to upgrade legacy payment systems to ISO 20022, including RITS in Australia and FEDWIRE in the US. New payment systems, such as P27 in Scandinavia, are also adopting ISO 20022,” officials say.
Kepler Cheuvreux Taps CACEIS for Clearing & Settlement
Paris-based broker-dealer Kepler Cheuvreux completed “a comprehensive migration” of its clearing and settlement operations to the offerings of CACEIS, officials say.
The migration took place in March 2023 and the firm “onboarded their cash equity clearing and settlement activities while ensuring uninterrupted services for the clients,” according to CACEIS.
“The mandate covers roughly 30 trading venues and eight central counterparties (CCPs) across some 35 Central Securities Depositories (CSD). CACEIS handles all of Kepler Cheuvreux’s requirements in terms of clearing and settlement, custody, reporting services for corporate brokerage, and securities lending,” officials say.
The migration “marks the beginning of a very exciting journey as we embark on a series of impactful developments for our clients that will disrupt across the execution space,” says Grégoire Varenne, chairman of the executive board of Kepler Cheuvreux, in a prepared statement.
“Based on Kepler Cheuvreux`s requirements, our tailor-made, cross-border services are delivered out of Paris, Munich, and Luxembourg,” says Joseph Saliba, deputy CEO of CACEIS, in a statement.
Kepler Cheuvreux is an independent European firm that “specializes in research, execution, fixed income and credit, structured solutions, corporate finance, and asset management,” officials say.
The firm employs approximately 600 staff members and has offices in 13 major financial centers in Europe and the United States: Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva, London, Madrid, Milan, New York, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm, Vienna, and Zurich, officials say.
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