Archives: News Room

Tim Carmody – CTO, IPC Systems – recently shared his insights on eForex, addressing the evolving landscape of FX trading and the role of cloud computing.

While he acknowledges the advantages of cloud solutions, he points out that many FX firms may not prioritize elastic computing for their core trading operations, where stability is essential, especially during volatile market conditions. However, Carmody highlights that the cloud’s flexibility can enhance on-demand services that support trade execution. He notes, “FX may be the poster child for hybrid computing,” as it draws from a diverse array of data sources—including political, economic, and weather information. With the integration of elastic computing and AI, firms can better harness and manage this wealth of information, ultimately improving their trading strategies.

Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London – 26 September 2024 – RETN, the leading independent global network services provider, in collaboration with IPC Systems, a leading provider of secure, compliant communications and network connectivity solutions for the global financial markets, announces the go-live of a new 10G capacity connectivity link between Frankfurt and Hong Kong. This significant strategic industry initiative aims to enhance network diversity and performance for financial market participants. RETN and IPC successfully implemented and tested the circuit in a two-week timeframe.

The newly implemented, low-latency terrestrial route leverages RETN’s established TRANSKZ super-highway, offering significant additional diversity between Europe and Asia. The combination of low-latency performance, robust protection and a strong SLA ensures a reliable network backbone for business-critical applications and financial trading operations.

Hong Kong and Frankfurt are pivotal financial hubs, hosting multiple financial institutions, trading companies and data centres. Improving connectivity between these regions ensures market participants can access key liquidity venues and trade with minimal latency, essential for high-frequency trading and other time-sensitive financial operations. Enhanced market connectivity enables financial services customers to operate with maximum efficiency, reliability and speed, and to maintain a competitive           edge in fast-paced financial markets.

“IPC Systems has an overarching requirement for – and commitment – to building, maintaining and continuously enhancing the resilient, redundant, high performance industry networks that underpin and      safeguard our customers’ business-critical applications and trading activities,” said Paul Zatek, Head of Global Channel Sales of IPC Systems. “Our collaboration with RETN on this new Frankfurt-Hong Kong link reinforces this commitment, and gives our extensive global financial markets community another valuable route between key markets with the reliability and latency performance they expect from IPC’s service delivery and customer experience,” continued Zatek.

“In today’s tumultuous environment, with frequent disruptions such as sub-sea cable cuts and other network challenges, the importance of network diversity and availability of the service cannot be overstated. IPC Systems exemplifies forward-thinking innovation by prioritising network diversity and redundancy. Ensuring multiple, diverse routes is critical to maintaining uninterrupted connectivity and operational integrity,” said Tony O’Sullivan, CEO of RETN.

ATLANTA, NEW YORK and LONDON – September 17, 2024 – Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, and IPC Systems, a leading provider of trading communications solutions, announced today the launch of ICE Voice. This cloud-based audio solution is now live through ICE Chat, ICE’s industry-leading instant messaging system for commodities, offering a seamless communications platform for traders and global market participants.

ICE Voice leverages IPC’s Connexus Unigy private cloud platform to integrate always-on, persistent open connections with ICE Chat’s extensive network of over 120,000 users. ICE Chat can support full audio recording with configurable retention and anywhere, anytime playback of archived calls. Integrated chat and voice logs can create a single record of communications, helping to aid in trading desk or firm-wide compliance programs.

“We’re pleased to offer a single, integrated platform for chat and voice that was designed to tailor to the workflows of our customers and provide always-on, instantaneous connectivity for traders and other financial market participants,” said Maurisa Baumann, Head of Desktops and Feeds at ICE. “This innovative new solution can foster communication throughout the trading process and offer an easy-to-use recordkeeping tool for both chat and voice communications.”

ICE Voice is seamlessly integrated into the ICE Chat platform and is designed to provide an efficient workflow for financial professionals to effortlessly connect and interact. It combines voice connectivity with functionality that was designed specifically to tailor to the custom needs of traders, including ICE Chat’s AI-powered Smart Text Recognition functionality, which turns texts into actionable data using APIs, and Message Blaster for sending single messages to multiple contacts. With the addition of ICE Voice, users can seamlessly jump from chat to voice, open calls from chat tabs and group chat rooms, and create Voice Blasts to ‘shout out’ to groups of open connections simultaneously.

“By bringing our industry-leading voice technology together with ICE’s Chat network, we’re offering market participants a single solution for their communication needs,” said Tim Carmody, Chief Technology Officer at IPC Systems. “As traders needs evolve with changing markets, this robust solution will provide an enhanced trading experience for ICE Chat users and the back-office staff supporting them.”

For more information about ICE Chat, please visit: https://www.ice.com/fixed-income-data-services/access-and-delivery/desktop-web-platforms/chat.

LONDON, United Kingdom, August 20 – Beeks Group, a leading cloud computing and connectivity provider for financial markets, has announced a significant expansion of its partnership with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and IPC Systems. This extension will see Beeks’ Exchange Cloud service deployed at the JSE’s Teraco data center, bolstering the exchange’s Colo 2.0 offering with enhanced dual location disaster recovery capabilities.

JSE’s Colo 2.0 is an advanced managed infrastructure as a service powered by Beeks’ Exchange Cloud, in collaboration with IPC, a leading provider of electronic trading solutions. The service provides JSE customers with innovative hosting and connectivity solutions, accessing on-demand private cloud computing and low latency analytics. With the new integration at Teraco, Colo 2.0 not only enhances redundancy to meet the regulatory demands of large financial institutions but also exemplifies the operational agility that Beeks’ solutions and industry collaboration bring to market infrastructure.

This expansion is a testament to the agility and scalability of Beeks’ Exchange Cloud, and IPC’s data centre presence/fully hosted IaaS data centre solutions, enabling the JSE to quickly respond to market demands and regulatory requirements. By seamlessly scaling operations to include a secondary data centre, the JSE ensures that its infrastructure remains robust, resilient, and capable of adapting to the evolving needs of its customers.

The expansion builds on the successful launch of Colo 2.0 in September 2023 and follows a significant contract extension in March 2024 driven by higher-than-expected demand from the financial sector.

Significant Customer Adoption

Tebalo Tsoaeli, Chief Innovation Officer at the JSE, highlighted the strong uptake of the Colo 2.0 service since its introduction, noting the additional demand for a secondary solution that addresses redundancy and disaster recovery needs.

“Since the launch of Colo 2.0 in September 2023, JSE has seen significant adoption of the Colo 2.0 service by customers, demonstrating a clear demand for the product offering. This has resulted in additional demand for a secondary solution aimed at addressing the redundancy and Disaster Recovery requirements of existing customers. Through our partnership with Beeks and IPC, JSE seeks to power a truly cloud-based marketplace infrastructure that is modern, hyper-scalable, ultra-resilient, highly performant, and accessible to all market participants,” said Tsoaeli.

Supporting Global Market Demand

Gordon McArthur, CEO of Beeks, expressed enthusiasm about the continued partnership with the JSE.

“We are delighted to announce this further expansion with the JSE to meet the growing demand for the Colo 2.0 service from the JSE’s customers. Exchange Cloud continues to be a unique offering in the market, and the success of the solution at the JSE, in partnership with IPC, is supporting our discussions with other global exchanges, underpinning our confidence in continued momentum,” McArthur stated.

Market Impact and Future Outlook

Beeks’ collaboration with the JSE and IPC exemplifies the growing trend towards cloud-based solutions in financial markets, particularly in regions like Africa where digital infrastructure is rapidly evolving. By leveraging the operational agility and collective power of Beeks’ and IPC’s solutions, the JSE can swiftly adapt to changing market conditions, ensuring continuous high performance and resilience. This partnership underscores Beeks’ role as a thought leader in the space, delivering innovative technology solutions that drive the future of financial market infrastructure.

As financial markets continue to prioritize security, scalability, and performance, Beeks remains at the forefront of delivering solutions that address these critical needs, positioning itself as a key player in the future of financial market infrastructure.

London/New York – 9 July 2024 – IPC, the leading provider of secure, compliant communications and multi-cloud connectivity solutions for the financial markets, has been certified as a Google Cloud Interconnect Partner, and is now listed as one of its global providers of Supported Services.

IPC customers are now able to connect to Google Cloud locations globally. The Google Cloud Interconnect partnership is the most recent expansion of IPC’s Cloud Connect Direct solution, its network-to-network interface with all major public cloud providers.

Many of the world’s top financial institutions already use Connexus Cloud for order creation and placement, trade execution, market data delivery, clearing, settlement, and access to other trade life cycle services. By leveraging IPC’s core Network-to-Network Interface (NNI) with Google Cloud, IPC customers now have even faster, more secure, and efficient access to Google Cloud services. Customers can connect directly and on a managed, hosted, or dedicated basis to Google Cloud, with flexible bandwidth options (50MB to 50G).

Nitish Gupta, Senior Global Product Manager, Cloud Services, IPC said: “We want every customer’s ’cloud journey’ and experience to be unique, faster and more flexible, reliable and secure. We already enable financial market participants to effortlessly leverage cloud-based exchange platforms and execution venues, and to establish efficient direct connectivity to cloud providers. Further expansion of Connexus Cloud’s network-to-network connectivity with cloud providers like Google gives IPC customers more choice in terms of cloud access and service provision, and greater service flexibility with respect to seamless interoperability and interconnectivity between cloud services, and other IPC solutions.”

IPC’s multi-cloud platform Connexus Cloud is an interconnected trading ecosystem of more than 7,000 capital market participants in 750+ cities and 60+ countries. Connexus Cloud connects all entities involved in the capital markets trading lifecycle, including buy-side and sell-side counterparties, trading platforms, liquidity venues, interdealer brokers, application and market data providers and clearing and settlement services.

As Nitish Gupta shared with WatersTechnology, we’re expanding our partnership with Google to meet growing customer demand.

New York – May 29, 2024 – IPC, a leading provider of trading communications, electronic trading and infrastructure solutions for global financial markets, announced today that as part of a planned leadership transition Kurt Adams will succeed Bob Santella as CEO. Additionally, Stuart C. Harvey, Jr.  has been appointed Chairman of IPC’s Board of Directors and Michael Chin has been named an IPC Board Member. 

Adams has more than 25 years of leadership experience in the financial and technology industries, most recently serving as CEO of Optum Financial. Prior to joining Optum in 2019, Adams was group president and CEO of corporate payments for Fleetcor Technologies, Inc. He has also held leadership roles at U.S. Bank, Elavon Financial Services, Piper Sandler and the ABN AMRO Bank. 

“We want to thank Bob for his leadership and partnership over the last six years.  With SVP becoming the sole owner of IPC, this is an opportune time for Bob to pass the torch to Kurt, who is well suited to lead IPC through its next stage of growth. We are excited to work with Kurt on this exciting journey, and are grateful for Bob’s contributions to help IPC become the business it is today,” said Jonathan Waggoner, Managing Director at SVP.  

“I am excited to embark on this journey with IPC’s dedicated team. Our focus will remain on delivering exceptional value to our customers by expanding upon our innovative trading technology to create a more connected experience and fostering a culture of customer-centricity to remain at the forefront of the financial services industry,” said Kurt Adams, incoming CEO at IPC. 

“The future of IPC is extremely bright,” Santella said. “I depart with the deepest appreciation for the support I received from our owners, Board of Directors and an incredible team of employees across the globe who strive to deliver the best products and customer service in the industry.” 

New Board Positions Also Announced 

As part of the executive leadership changes, Stuart Harvey has been named Chairman of IPC’s Board of Directors and Michael Chin has been named an IPC Board Member, effective immediately.

Stuart Harvey’s multifaceted background spans capital markets, financial technology, payments and related software businesses.  He has previously served as CEO of Elavon Global Acquiring and Ceridian Corporation and as president of Piper Sandler.  Stuart has also chaired the board of directors of Paysafe Group and Wageworks and serves as the current Chairman of Flowbird (Paris, FR) and Weave Communications (NYSE: “Weav”).   

Michael Chin currently serves as CEO at DUCO and has been a part of leading organizations such as Broadway Technology, Refinitiv, Mantara, TradingScreen and JP Morgan. Michael’s industry experience and expertise for innovation bolsters IPC’s position for future success.   

22 May 2024, London/New York – IPC, the leading provider of secure, compliant communications and multi-cloud connectivity solutions for the financial markets, has joined forces with global communications surveillance tech firm VoxSmart to significantly enhance the accuracy and efficiency of multilingual transcription technology for financial institutions.

Drawing on cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology and using real-life conversations had by capital markets professionals, the partnership is set to transform how financial markets operate. Offering a 50-fold increase in speed compared to previous transcription technologies, the new capability will deliver unparalleled accuracy in real-time transcriptions across all financial languages.

The new technology empowers front office trading desks and sales teams to seamlessly convert real-time audio into structured data, permitting them to integrate insights into trading blotters, order management systems, and CRM applications. This integration opens doors for the development and implementation of proprietary large language models (LLM) and natural language processing (NLP) applications.

The news arrives on the heels of remarkable advancements in AI and large language modeling. These breakthroughs enable transcription innovators to create more robust and precise engines. It couldn’t come at a more crucial time for financial institutions, which face increasing regulatory scrutiny on communications reporting. With billions in fines already levied for non-compliance, the need for highly accurate multilingual AI transcription technology has never been more pressing.

Oliver Blower, CEO of VoxSmart, said: “Voice-based communications are the lifeblood of many over-the-counter markets. Until now, they’ve been blind spots for many firms, posing challenges not just for compliance monitoring but also for uncovering valuable business insights. Our partnership with IPC seeks to change that, equipping financial institutions with the ability to effortlessly meet evolving compliance requirements while gaining a competitive edge by bridging communication gaps in rapidly expanding markets.”

James Tonks, SVP Partner Development, IPC commented: “Our partnership with VoxSmart marks a significant leap forward in the realm of financial communications. By combining our secure, compliant communication solutions with VoxSmart’s advanced AI-driven transcription technology, we are not only enhancing compliance capabilities but also empowering our clients with unprecedented real-time insights and operational efficiency. This collaboration is a testament to our commitment to innovation and excellence in serving the financial markets.