Velocimetrics, the provider of real-time business performance monitoring and analysis solutions to the global financial community, today announces that British multi-asset contract for difference (CFD), FX and spread betting company City Index, has implemented Velocimetrics at a time when British electronic trading firms are aiming to increase their technological prowess.
The deployment provides independent monitoring of City Index’s equities price production infrastructure and market data quality, supporting on-going efforts to effectively manage operational risk and ensure the continuous publication of fast, high quality pricing.
Britain stands alone as a populous center of electronic trading, with many firms catering toward the unusual trading environment in which spread betting and trading of contracts for difference are prevalent due to the taxation rulings surrounding profits from electronic trading in Britain. With London maintaining its position as the world’s largest financial center, non-bank retail FX companies are keeping abreast of technological change in order to ensure their modernity and operational advantages among ever more discerning clients.
Today, LeapRate reported that compatriot firm ETX Capital rolled out Gresham Computing’s Clareti Transaction Control (CTC) solution, which the spread betting and CFD trading company will initially be using CTC to automate the reconciliation of its general ledger cash movements for client trade activity, card transactions and mobile payments.
The implementation is part of a wider initiative to improve efficiencies across ETX’s global operations. CTC will be replacing existing spreadsheets and other manual process to provide ETX with real-time financial certainty across its middle and back office operations. ETX Capital has taken great steps recently to refine its technology, including the development and support of its own in-house platforms for desktop and mobile trading, which serve the discerning British audience alongside the firm’s MetaTrader 4 solution for overseas clients who trade spot FX.
Additionally, alongside its own research and development division, ETX Capital acquired British technology provider Ariel Communications after working with the firm for several years on technology projects.
In the case of City Index’s implementation of Velocimetrics’ solution, the firm seeks to achieve an environment where the availability of reliable, accurate and timely market data is essential to price production, with the real-time functionality raising instant alerts should degradation occur in the quality of market data received from exchanges.
Velocimetrics also rapidly detects possible sources of latency across the entire price production process; from the moment market data is generated on the exchange through to the price being received by a client. By doing so, City Index is able to accurately pinpoint the exact location of any issue occurring across its complete environment and trace any given price back to the market data tick that generated it, facilitating the problem’s quick resolution.
The solution helps City Index to further improve the timeliness and quality of prices delivered to their clients, allowing them to react more quickly to market conditions. Velocimetrics has helped City Index achieve this by producing detailed, real-time business level analytics, which enable City Index to instantly understand how performance issues may be impacting prices, trades and client experience. To understand more about City Index’s implementation of Velocimetrics please click here to view the case study.
Commenting on the recent implementation, Gautam Dixit, Head of Pricing and Analytics at City Index stated: ‘We view the delivery of high quality pricing as essential and by implementing end-to-end monitoring of our entire price production process, we are adding an additional layer of quality and risk management to our pricing.’
Steve Colwill, CEO at Velocimetrics added: ‘We are witnessing a growing trend among firms keen to really understand the quality of the market data on which they are basing pricing decisions, beyond more traditional measures such as timeliness, and identify opportunities to increase price publication or trade execution performance. These innovative firms are pushing the boundaries of what many have come to traditionally expect from their performance monitoring solutions and as a result are able to very effectively control their exposure to operational risk.’