The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is among the first to capitalise on the decision by CREST to scarp the BT Syntegra-SWIFT duopoly on access to its settlement services.
Last week the LSE received formal approval to act as a network provider to CREST. The first customer, West LB, went live on Thursday. “We also have other customers signed up who will start using the service soon,” says an LSE spokesman “Now we are approved we will begin to market the service in earnest.”
LSE obtains telecommunications services for its Extranex IP network from the beleaguered WorldCom, and is exploring a number of opportunities to pour more products and services down the copious bandwidth it provides for trading and price information.
“We are now able to leverage our IP network infrastructure to offer a network for sending settlement messages to Crest as well,” continues the spokesman. “We believe we can cut member firms’ settlement network costs by as much as 50 percent.” The LSE reckons its arrival as a provider will save its members around 15 million.
“By using the same network for trading and information our service offers price discounts for larger trading volumes, encryption, authentication and highly secure transmission, and one network for both trading and information,” concludes the spokesman. “Using our network would effectively give forms a single point of access for trading and settlement.”