021907

AEMS, BMB TO PARTNER

Atos Euronext Market Solutions (Aems), an IT provider to the exchange community, and Bursa Malaysia Berhad, owners of the Bursa Malaysia, have signed a letter of intent outlining plans to establish a joint venture that will deliver IT solutions to Bursa Malaysia and other exchanges in Asia. The new venture will be owned equally by the two partners, with Aems providing technology solutions and Bursa Malaysia providing IT management services. If both parties decide to proceed with the joint venture, their intention is to execute the agreement by end of September, officials say.

SuperDerivatives, a provider of option pricing, independent revaluation, trading and risk management systems, has partnered with Microsoft for its integrated Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid) solution suite in the area of best execution for over-the-counter options. Part of the suite includes Trade Price Auditor, a Web service that tracks any executed trade in the dealing room and compares it with its current fair market price in real time. It also sends online alerts to cell phones or handhelds, and provides end-of-day audit trail reports.

The International Securities Exchange (ISE) has completed the rollout of its fully displayed stock market, ISE Stock Exchange. Traders can now access approximately 6,000 National Market System (NMS) securities through both ISE's non-displayed liquidity pool, MidPoint Match, and its displayed market. ISE Stock Exchange introduced its displayed market on Dec. 8, 2006, and has added securities in advance of the March 5 implementation date for the Reg NMS order protection rule.

Interdealer broker Icap recently announced the launch of an automated ticket-netting service for its global currency and metals e-trading platform, EBS. The new service, dubbed NetLink, is targeted at prime broking banks and allows them to net client foreign exchange (FX) trades by currency pairs at pre-defined points throughout the day. After trades are netted and processed by the service, they are confirmed electronically to the prime broker bank's back office either as deal tickets or as payment records. Icap worked with Traiana, a post-trade specialist and provider of the Harmony network for FX prime brokers, to develop the service.

Neovest, a provider of trading technology and direct market access, recently announced that it has connected its trading platform to 15 unadvertised, or dark, pools of liquidity. Neovest also recently launched an active trading tool that simultaneously disseminates orders to numerous dark destinations, aimed at providing quick and broad access to these multiple sources of hidden liquidity.