OPERATIONS BRIEFS

City Networks, provider of software and services to the broking community and the broader treasury, securities and derivatives markets, announced that it is working with the Automated Confirmation Service (ACS) to provide an Internet-based deal Notification/Confirmation Service (eAutoConfs) that aims to help bring cost-effective STP right up to the dealer screen. ACS is the consortium of London brokers that set up the original AutoConfs electronic-confirmation service, which is now in use by most major brokers and banks around the world. The new eAutoConfs service is now live, with around 40 users of the confirmation service, and will shortly commence the pilot-notification service.

Princeton Financial Systems has introduced PAM InfoStream, an interface technology that raises the level of automation of the company's PAM portfolio management and accounting system by integrating its object-oriented and message-based business-intelligence engine with XML-based Web services and middleware. The vendor contends that this enables users to take greater advantage of the Internet and their existing middleware infrastructures to gather and deliver information. It also enables them to achieve greater efficiencies in system integration and client reporting in order to leapfrog faster to straight-through processing, claims Princeton.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) announced the launch of its expanded and enhanced communications network, called "Securely Managed and Reliable Technology," or SMART, which, it says, will provide customers with end-to-end connectivity support for all post-trade clearance, settlement and information-based services. Unique to SMART is the fact that DTCC owns and manages all elements of the network from its processing complex all the way through to the customer premises, including the hardware, software and the relationships with multiple telecommunications carriers, to diversify connections and to ensure continuity of service, says DTCC.