BRIEF TRANSMISSIONS

January 15: To support expansion of its presence in Asia, ABN Amro's wholly owned subsidiary Mees Pierson it looking outside to vendors to replace its internally developed risk management system. Mees Pierson wants to enhance its middle- and back-office system with real-time front-office derivatives analytics and links to exchanges. In addition, the bank is looking to establish derivatives clearing services in Malaysia and Singapore.

March 11: Dow Jones Telerate is beta testing a risk management system that will match its data collection and delivery tools with financial engineering tools provided by a number of third parties, including FNX, Spectrasoft, Ryan Labs, Softek and JP Morgan. Initially, Telerate will make the services available through its Microsoft Windows-based Telerate Workstation but will add other delivery options in the future.

April 22: Bridge Information Systems previews its Workstation Five, a new Windows and Windows NT-based platform that adds Asian content to the data and analytics available on its previous institutional workstation. The new information includes AFX-Asia news, CEIC Data's information on the Asian economy, First Call's Research Direct broker research and Edinburgh Financial Products' TED regional earnings estimates.

June 17: In 1994, Dow Jones Telerate took a strong stance against allowing customers to redistribute its data over their wide area networks, but the vendor is now creeping towards a policy that will give customers greater flexibility. That reversal is the result of a meeting last May of Telerate executives in Frankfurt. "Our customers increasingly need to distribute [Telerate] data across their enterprises," says a Telerate spokesperson.

July 29: Sakura Bank has purchased a global license for FNX's front-to-back office suite of forex options software. The contract puts an end to the bank's earlier thoughts of upgrading from Sungard's Devon Derivatives System. This contract takes place against the backdrop of a separate $30 million development project to build a global market risk management system.

September 9: Three major Korean banks--Korea First Bank, Hanil Bank and Korea Exchange Bank--have selected C.ats Software to supply derivatives dealing management software. With these agreements in hand, C.ats is close to making a clean sweep of the major domestic banks in Korea.

October 21: Smith Barney Singapore is poised to revamp its brokerage systems platform, deploying Reuters' Triarch platform and Windows NT to give end users access to market data and the firm's internal applications. Part of the cost of implementing Triarch will be recouped by reducing some Bloomberg terminals used on the firm's trading floor. Meanwhile, Smith Barney has nixed upgrading its fixed income brokers and managed futures team to Reuters' 3000 service.

November 4: Sun Microsystems has launched a Web site catering to Java developers and IT managers in the financial industry. Along with offering a forum for the exchange of Java applets, distributed object frameworks and tools, the site is designed to promote open discussion of firms' Java-related issues and ideas.