STOCKHOLM, Sweden, March 16, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- ICAP's BrokerTec unit has recently signed an extended three year global agreement with OMX Technology for the license, support and hosting of ICAP's BrokerTec electronic trading system, based on OMX Technology's CLICK XT(tm) trading software. This agreement includes hosting and supporting the global network and hardware infrastructure in data centers in the United States, United Kingdom and Sweden. In addition, OMX has delivered new efficiency enhancements to the platform.
"ICAP is the most highly regarded inter-dealer broker of fixed income securities in the world, and we are pleased to have participated in the success of their BrokerTec platform," said Klas Stahl, President, OMX Technology. "This extended agreement reinforces our strong business relationship with ICAP, and represents a real vote of confidence in our ability to continue to meet their technology needs as they grow and expand their business."
"We appreciate OMX's extensive technical expertise and solid understanding of the electronic trading arena and the global securities markets," said Jay Spencer, Global Chief Information Officer, ICAP. "As our planned growth places increased demands on our electronic trading platforms, we are confident that we can continue to rely on OMX to support us in the expansion of our business."
In addition to the extended contractual agreement, OMX has delivered upgrades to the BrokerTec trading system that improves bandwidth efficiency for BrokerTec's market data broadcasting component by fifty percent, as well as enrich response time for the broadcasts. The upgrades were achieved without increases in existing bandwidth. As a result of these developments, changes to BrokerTec's order depth and price levels resulting from any order entry or change will update all customer gateways in an average of less than a tenth of a second from initial input. These improvements make the overall market data broadcasting component, which was always efficient, even more so.
Mr. Spencer noted, "The landscape in U.S. Treasury trading continues to evolve from the original implementation of the BrokerTec system. Increasing levels of broadcasts of market data information during economic releases continue to produce substantial throughput demands. We're constantly reviewing, evaluating and refining methods to make an already fast system faster. These system upgrades clearly improve this component for each client and enhance network efficiency and response times for all of BrokerTec's users."
In operation since June 2000, BrokerTec has transacted more than $200 trillion in fixed income securities. Since its inception, OMX has supplied ICAP's BrokerTec with its electronic inter-dealer platform. In addition to ICAP's BrokerTec platform, ICAP operates a number of electronic broking platforms including i-Swap, FRA-Cross, DataTec, BankOxygen and the recently launched i-Forwards.
For more information, please contact:
OMX Klas Stahl, President, OMX Technology +46 8 405 6035 Anna Rasin, VP, Marketing & Communications +46 8 405 6612 Lisa Selkin Lupo, Director of Marketing, Americas +1 646 428 2835 ICAP Ivette Collazo, Communications Director, ICAP North America +1 201 209 7831
About OMX Technology
OMX Technology is a global company with expertise in how to make securities transactions more efficient. Known for its fully electronic trading platforms, OMX Technology is a world leading provider of transaction technology, processing and outsourcing solutions for the financial and energy markets. OMX Technology has over 100 customers in 20 countries and is the largest commercial provider of marketplace systems to the world's major exchanges. OMX Technology is a division of OMX, a company that also owns and operates exchanges, clearing organizations and central securities depositories, and has operations in 14 countries. For more information, please visit www.omxgroup.com. About ICAP/BrokerTec. ICAP is the world's largest interdealer broker, and following the acquisition of the BrokerTec fixed income securities businesses, is the world's leading electronic broker of fixed income securities with a daily average transaction volume in excess of US$800 billion, 50% of which is electronic. The Group is active in the wholesale market for OTC derivatives, fixed income securities, money market products, foreign exchange, energy, credit and equity derivatives. ICAP's electronic broking footprint in fixed income products is much more extensive than any other broker and currently includes active and off-the-run US Treasuries, Bills, Notes, Bonds, Strips, TIPS and Basis trading as well as Agencies and Mortgages; European, UK, Australian, Japanese and South African government bonds; US$ and euro repurchase agreements; Eurobonds and Credit Derivatives.
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