TradingLinx Partners With Bloomberg to Boost Virtual Matching Solution

TradingLinx, a workflow system for post-execution, pre-settlement securities trade processing developed by TLX Trading Network, recently signed a deal with Bloomberg that will see TradingLinx software, which facilitates notices of executions (NOEs) and allocations exchanged in buy/sell-side communications, integrated with Bloomberg's buy- and sell-side trade order management (TOM) systems.

As it calls for integration with Bloomberg's Portfolio Trade Order Management System (PTOMS) for the buy side and Trade Order Management System (TOMS) for the sell side, the deal should help TradingLinx gain traction as it races against the Global Straight Through Processing Association (GSTPA) and Omgeo to court firms entering the new virtual matching world that is essential for a one-day settlement cycle (T+1) slated for adoption in June 2004.

Actual integration with Bloomberg should not be too difficult a task, says TLX Trading Network Chief Executive Officer Gordon Henderson because both companies "speak" Financial Information Exchange (FIX), a "language" which defines specific kinds of electronic messages for communicating securities transactions between two parties by standardizing the format of the messages and the session-level interaction between two applications.

In addition to the Bloomberg project, Henderson says, TradingLinx wants to start integration work with every TOM in the market. "Our strategic initiative here is to connect to as many trade management software products as we can-we have had conversations with all of the majors," he says. Though conversations are a good starting point, Henderson admits that actual integration work often comes to pass when clients of a particular TOM vendor express concrete interest in gaining access to the TradingLinx network.

One of the first firms to do so is Credit Lyonnais in New York, which went live on the TradingLinx system in mid-May interacting with the Island electronic communication network (ECN) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Integration in that case involved TradingLinx working with Credit Lyonnais' trade order management vendor Belzberg Technologies-maker of the Belzberg Financial Trading System-as well as linking Credit Lyonnais to its asset management group based in London.

When the Bloomberg integration is completed around mid-July, Henderson says, firms can access TradingLinx through Bloomberg, via their TOM vendor-if integration with that vendor has been completed-or directly with TradingLinx over the Internet using the company's GUI.

One reason TradingLinx believes it will be more than able to compete in a world with industry-backed GSTPA and Thomson Financial/DTCC backed Omgeo, Henderson says, is because its system will deftly cover not just equities but fixed-income instruments and derivatives.

Henderson adds, "One of our competitive advantages over GSTPA or Omgeo is to have an open interface with standard languages such as FIX and also to be able to interoperate with order management systems which dramatically reduces the implementation cost and risk associated with these types of integration."

Henderson declined to discuss TradingLinx's plans for pricing.

---

Product: TradingLinx

Produced by: New York, New York-based TLX Trading Network

Objective: To provide inter-institutional electronic trade management. The Company's solution aims to help asset managers, broker-dealers and custodians improve the communication flow of trade details by providing a single pipeline though which post-trade information can flow.

Competitors: Omgeo and the GSTPA

Claimed Competitive Advantage: Advanced capabilities in handling trades involving fixed-income instruments and derivatives.

Phone: 212-747-4700

Website: www.tradinglinx.com