BGC Partners, a provider of brokerage services to wholesale fixed income, interest rate, foreign exchange and derivatives markets worldwide, went live with ConteX MCS, a tool for real-time price contributions earlier this year.
BGC is using ConteX MCS to provide a centralised output for contributions across various business areas including both swaps and derivatives. Prices are routed from BGC’s offices around the world to its market data platform in London. The information then goes to the ConteX MCS input handler and is routed to the output handler, which sends the prices to Bloomberg and also internally to the company. As BGC’s contributions business grows, ConteX MCS can expand to support multiple feeds to Bloomberg and to other providers such as Reuters.
ConteX MCS is continuously monitored and, in the event of a failure, is automatically restarted with no effect on the delivery of contributions. The hardware platform is also duplicated with ‘hot standby’. In this configuration, two servers run identical information in real-time, with immediate switch over to ensure the continuity of contributions.
Richard Gissing, CTO, Gissing Software said: “Data contribution volumes are increasing and we will see this trend continue. Systems need to cope with heavy throughput, offer increased connections and full control of the contribution process. Banks and brokers want their systems up and running straight away to take advantage of changing market conditions. ConteX MCS can be installed quickly in most companies, due to the extensive handler library and is easily integrated with existing systems. A core strength of ConteX MCS is its ability to scale to meet the demands of increased volumes and multiple feeds to one or more vendors.”