TECHNOLOGY

Internet Systems Corp of Chicago has announced an agreement with Surecomp, a private Canadian software company, under which Surecomp will take charge of operations for TradeAtlas, a high volume FX and money market trading system that includes extensive data distribution capabilities.

Under this deal Surecomp, which was established in 1987, will look after customers, product development and ongoing rollouts while Internet retains marketing responsibility. Upon the next release of the product, scheduled for the end of the second quarter of 1996, Surecomp will rename the product POWERdealer.

Internet has already built a link between TradeAtlas and Atlas, Internet's back office system. This link, together with Internet's Atlas Express initiative offers customers straight through processing for their FX and money market deals.

The Co-operative Bank, the Manchester-based U.K. clearing bank, is planning to double the size of its trading operations with the installation of a new dealing room in London, officials say. The move will boost the number of traders at the bank from 16 to 30 covering foreign exchange, money markets, derivatives and corporate trading.

As part of the expansion the Co-op will install a Reuters Triarch 2000 digital data distribution system. Reuters was chosen in competition with an alternative system advanced by Teknos Systems, according to Rod Brien, project and systems manager at the bank. "We looked at Triarch and Teknos, and it was very close," he says.

The Triarch replaces a Reuters Prism video switch that will be retained in the forex department for the use of the Reuters Dealing 2000-2 electronic order matching system. Brien says the bank plans to move into the new room over the last week-end in April and will begin operations in May. The bank's treasurer is Philip Guy who replaced Roger Drayton last year.

Brien says the Co-op's trading expansion will be across all sectors but especially in corporate trading and derivatives. The bank is strong in sterling money markets but will move into some new markets including gilt trading.

Banco O'Higgins, one of Chile's largest private banks, has signed up with SunGard Capital Markets for a suite of packaged applications software for trading and tracking derivative financial instruments. Banco O'Higgins pioneered the domestic currency forward market and was the first Chilean bank to use American depository receipts in the U.S. market. The central bank is in the process of deregulating Chile's financial markets.

The SunGard licence was signed by Banco O'Higgins after a lengthy evaluation of various systems and configurations and resulted in the bank taking The Devon Derivatives System with modules for FX and bonds, running on an SQL database. The software will be reconfigured to conform to domestic market requirements and incorporate the appropriate interfaces with the bank's existing systems.

ING Barings has become the first customer to buy the recently announced Teletrac Tradestation Microsoft Windows-based technical analysis product. The bank has installed the software at 16 positions in Amsterdam. The software is being used by traders in currencies, bonds and equities, says Royce Tostrams, senior technical analyst at the bank.