France Telecom-owned Orange Business Services (OBS) has linked its Trading Solutions network to GL Net, the broker-dealer market data and order routing network owned by technology firm SunGard.
The deal, announced yesterday, brings together over 1,000 broker-dealers on GL Net with an OBS networked community of over 2,000 broker-dealers, inter-dealer brokers and fund managers. Both sides are looking to benefit from the network effects. It is a first “community” deal for OBS.
OBS, previously known as Etrali, first came to prominence as a provider of trading turrets. It has since emerged as the principal competitor to Radianz, the former Equant-Reuters joint venture now owned by BT, in the provision of fast and secure communications networks for the transmission of orders, data and messages in the main industry-standard protocols such as SWIFT, FIX and Omgeo.
OBS still provides dedicated links between traders, and traders and their buy-side clients – algo trading houses are a major client group – but considers its ability to combine voice and electronic communications on the same network as a major competitive advantage in selling against BT Radianz to traditional stock exchanges, MTFs, CSDs and CCPs.
Work on connecting the two networks started earlier this month. Once live, existing OBS Trading Solutions customers will have immediate access to SunGard’s GL Net community, an ASP-based platform that connects market makers to 80 exchanges and other market centers, including the London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and NYSE-Euronext. SunGard’s customers will benefit from Orange Business Services – Trading Solutions voice and data connectivity solutions.
Sebastien Jaouen, head of trading community services at OBS, stresses that low cost access to multiple markets for broker-dealers and buy-side clients on both networks is the major advantage of the deal. “Adding SunGard’s ASP platform to our MPLS network strengthens our community by delivering instant direct access to trade on multiple markets around the world,” he says. “Clients can trade on 80 markets through a single PC, without big systems in the back office to support them, or worrying about either local connectivity, or keeping up with upgrades and patches issued by trading platforms. They get rid of the whole burden of compliance with exchanges and MTFs. It is a very cost-effective solution that we are putting on the table.”
Users of the OBS network pay subscription fees plus other fees based on the type and volume of business they wish to transact – such as data, voice, DMA, algo trading and so on.