FX Bridge Technologies, founded in 1999, provides ProTrader Plus, a dealing system to clearing firms and introducing brokers both domestically and internationally, that market to individual investors who trade spot FX, contracts for difference (CFDs) and standardized options. (Standardized options are similar to exchange traded contracts but they offer immediate response from a dealer instead of the floor.)

While ProTrader Plus has traditionally operated as a standalone environment, most large banks or clearing firms have legacy back-office environments, which they are not in a position to scrap, says James Friedman, director of marketing at FX Bridge. “If they want to integrate with something else, FIX Flyer is the integration and FIX Protocol is the mechanism by which we do it,” says Friedman.

By utilizing the FIX messaging standard, banks that like a particular front-end dealing system can receive or transmit orders to FX Bridge’s back-office and risk management system. The banks can use the ProTrade Plus back office and integrate with their existing back office for consolidated reporting.
“What we have found is that other companies really like our back-office risk management product, but they like Ninja Trader or Meta Trader or other popular front-end environments, says Friedman. “So with that front-end broken out we can provide back-office systems and comprehensive risk management and comprehensive reporting,” explains Friedman. “We can get transactions from another source or you can transmit all via the FIX Protocol,” he says. This means if the transactions are routed in via an ECN(like Hotspot or Currenex), FX Bridge can receive, record or transmit to them, notes Friedman.

According to George Kledaras, Chairman of FIX Flyer, which develops advanced trading technology for multi-asset trading using the FIX Protocol at high volumes, outsourcing the FIX technology will enable the vendor to focus on their core platform. “We’re running it as a hosted service as opposed to putting a FIX engine at the client’s site,” says Kledaras. This helps out in terms of quality of support but also in reliability and speed, says Kledaras. “Instead of tying a FIX engine locally at their site, more and more firms are outsourcing it where we host the FIX engine and all the connectivity to their clients to all the execution destinations for forex,” he says. “It’s taking FIX to greater heights, to greater possibilities and further entrenching it in the world of derivatives and forex,” adds Kledaras.

Friedman, who looked the major players in FIX integration, says the firm had three main requirements. First, the outsourced model was appealing. Second, the vendor had to be comprehensive in being able to handle a lot of international as well as domestic business, he says, noting that half of FX Bridge’s current business is international. Third, the FIX engine had to have “stellar transactional throughput.” For example, in FX options there can be periods of no activity and then suddenly, when the Federal Reserve announcement comes out, there can be 2,000 trades in a minute, he says. “If there is a barrage of transactions, FIX Flyer guarantees that everything will be put through in lightening speed,” he says.