Bear Gets FFastFill Link to LME

LONDON—Bear Stearns is live with a direct market access (DMA) service for trading on the London Metal Exchange (LME) via FFastFill, a London-based provider of hosted application services for the derivatives trading community, FFastFill officials tell DWT.

The application service provider (ASP) offering is used by the Liquid Products Group of Bear Stearns, a major sell-side firm headquartered in New York. By providing trading facilities for its LME customers, Bear Stearns is aiming at expanding its presence in London.

Officials at Bear Stearns were not available for comment by press time.

The FFastFill application service is composed of a core trading platform that provides the internal message handling and supports the underlying system management capabilities, according to FFastFill officials. FFastFill also provides Bear Stearns with risk management and global order book modules.

In addition to providing trading software to Bear Stearns, FFastFill is also supplying hosting capabilities and remote delivery. "We deliver to their customers wherever they are in the U.S. or in the U.K.," says Keith Todd, chairman and CEO of FFastFill.

This initial deal with Bear Stearns could lead to further collaboration between the two companies. "There is a significant opportunity, the most obvious one being service delivery and connectivity to other exchanges," says Todd.

FFastFill's services conform to user-defined service level agreements (SLAs), and can support a range of trading-related functions including front-, middle- and back-office applications as well as exchange links.

Last July, FFastFill was announcing a growing interest in its LME trading platform and the middle-office software it obtained through last year's acquisition of Future Dynamics (DWT, July 25, 2005 and July 19, 2004). "We're in negotiations on the Reuters front with five other banks. We haven't done business with any of them in the past," Todd said during a press briefing last July. "Probably the hottest piece of software we have today is the LME matching engine," he said.

FFastFill also released last week its financial results for the period ending Sept. 30, 2005. FFastFill reported revenue up by 22 percent to £2.28 million ($3.92 million) compared to £1.87 million ($3.22 million) at the same time last year, but with loss on ordinary activities before taxation at £1.57 million ($2.7 million), which was £1.59 million ($2.74 million) last year. The company is looking at expanding its operations in Asia with plans to make available the Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong Futures exchanges on their application service in 2006.