EBIF 2007: BT and Reuters present their new market data solution as a service out of the network

At this year's EBIF (European Banking & Insurance Fair) in Frankfurt, Germany, Reuters and BT have for the first time presented a new variant of the Reuters Market Data System (RMDS), which is fully accessible as a service from the BT network. On the exhibition stands of joint-venture partners Reuters and BT, visitors were able to learn more about the new solution, which has the potential to establish itself as a future industry standard.

The RMDS solution, which is marketed by Reuters and hosted in BT’s data centres, supplies market data for different trading applications and also for pricing and risk management. A clear advantage of the new platform, which will shortly become available to banks worldwide, is that customers have a single point of contact at Reuters for the supply and operation of the solution, using the know-how of the solution developer. As the key components of the application are brought together in the BT data centre, users do not need their own servers. This avoids the usual infrastructure costs and the interfacing and accountability problems caused by having different providers. Several businesses have already been won over by this efficient combination.

A good example of the successful introduction of the hosting platform is the recent project carried out by WestLB bank in Dusseldorf and London. Although the usual dealer interface has not changed, the system components formerly supplied by a variety of providers are now the responsibility of Reuters, which greatly simplifies support for the RMDS environment. This greatly improves WestLB's flexibility when it comes to integrating further locations or services on the newly created platform. Another favourable effect for the bank is the opportunity to cut costs, as they no longer need to have their own servers or their own infrastructure.