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FFASTFILL
PLC - 23rd June, 2004
FFastFill enables business breakthrough
Company re-launched as an Application Services Provider
Electronic markets, led by derivative
exchanges, are on the verge of the most important breakthrough
since online trading began, according to Keith Todd, executive
chairman of FFastFill. A dramatic reorganisation of the
technology which intermediaries use to receive and handle
orders and transactions is now available which will liberate
intermediaries from traditional order flow constraints
and enable the industry to build in new and still higher
levels of growth.
FFastFill makes this claim at its re-launch today. Announcing
its development from an Independent Software Vendor (ISV)
into an Application Service Provider (ASP) Keith Todd said
`Until now ISVs, including FFastFill,
have not really changed fundamentally the way brokers handle
their order flow. ISVs have added great value and are now
a necessary link in the chain, but their contribution has
been largely additional to brokers' internal operations.
The ASP model extracts and externalises much of the order
processing IT currently owned and managed by brokers and
re-engineers it as applications delivered as a service
by FFastFill to its clients.'
The effect of this is threefold–
- it enables brokers to concentrate on client relationships,
not IT,
- it dramatically reduces the cost to brokers of investing
in and maintaining complex IT,
- it provides increasingly flexible solutions to the
changing needs of trading on electronic markets.
Continued Todd, `Online exchanges mean
that the traditional exchange-broker-customer chain can be
handled in a completely different way. Until now ISVs just
sold software to brokers who then used it to enhance their
relationships with exchanges and clients. ASP impacts on
the fundamentals of this process in that FFastFill becomes
the host for exchange data transmission (connectivity), provides
order routing and management and also provides a full suite
of software products (functionality) such as pre- and post-trade
risk management. All this is delivered as a service for which
intermediaries contract and pay for as a flat fee. Although
hard numbers are difficult to quantify we believe large intermediaries
can make real savings of 20 - 30 per cent on these activities
and can additionally look to increase the customer base and
order flow substantially.’
`Commercially, therefore, intermediaries
can now take of advantage of scaleable IT services according
to their customer and exchange needs without the cost
of self-build and maintenance. This enables brokers to
expand into new customer areas more profitably as the
high fixed IT hurdle costs cease to be barriers to entry
into new e-trading sectors.’
The FFastFill re-launch comes three and a half years after
the company was listed on AIM in 2000. After a difficult
two years the company acquired new management, new funding
and a new approach to this market. FFastFill has since
developed a sound track record of delivering high performance
software to intermediaries trading on electronic derivatives
markets. Over the past 18 months the company has combined
this expertise with its experience in managing major outsourcing
contracts to create a unique application service platform
for the electronic trading community.
Delivery via SLA
In offering this service FFastFill takes full accountability
for delivering the complete technology platform by contracting
to a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which reflects the customers
business requirement, at a single fee which covers all
aspects of the service.
This service is of very high quality because FFastFill
has re-engineered the way in which all elements of the
trading technology have been designed and implemented.
Most importantly the application software has been re-architected
to provide a modular and flexible solution. This provides
the customer with not only high levels of performance and
security, but also totally new benchmarks for availability,
configurability and scalability.
In order to support such a high quality service, FFastFill
manages the whole operation using a comprehensive service
management system which monitors and controls all aspects
of the delivered service including not only the performance
and availability of the network and the IT infrastructure
but also the application software.
Keith Todd, executive chairman, concluded, “I
am delighted that today we can deliver what we promised
the market, a new completely different technology experience
- managed application services. I am convinced that all
market technology will be deployed in this way in the future.
I believe that the new contract wins that we have gained
recently clearly demonstrate that the market supports this
breakthrough approach that FFastFill is delivering”
FFastFill is an AIM listed company based in London which
designs and delivers application services for trading and
risk management on electronic markets. These services provide
full application functionality, and save an institution
the cost of investing in and maintaining its own technology
infrastructure and staff department. All FFastFill’s
services are delivered against a contracted Service Level
Agreement (SLA) that can be tailored to the institutions
business requirements. FFastFill provides these services
from specialist operational centres in London and Chicago
and a software development centre in Prague .
For further information, please contact:
Rostron Parry
John Parry - Tel: (020) 7490 8062
FFastFill plc -
Tel: (020) 7655 8900
Keith Todd, Executive Chairman
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