BT today announced a seven-year contract with TP ICAP, a leading provider of market infrastructure. The new contract will provide its 700-strong broker team in London with a secure, software-based platform and applications featuring remote working capabilities. The new service will further strengthen TP ICAP’s execution services across voice trading venues.

BT Trading is a unified communications and collaboration (UCC) platform engineered specifically for the high-performance real-time trading, regulatory and security needs of the global capital markets. It can be accessed by brokers working remotely and is integrated with leading unified communications platforms from Microsoft and Cisco. It includes a powerful suite of applications and devices supported by systems either hosted by customers in their own data centres, by BT or in the public cloud.

TP ICAP will also benefit from decreasing broking operations expenditure by reducing the real estate needed for technology infrastructure and disaster recovery sites.

BT is also deploying its BT Trading soft turret app which replicates on a mobile device or PC the hardware turrets, also known as dealer boards, used by brokers on trading floors.  This will enhance business resilience by ensuring brokers can communicate with customers and have access to markets just as if they were in the office.

To help customers meet their compliance obligations for service availability and call recording, BT Trading automation assures the operational functionality of voice recording and verifies enforcement of recording policies.  As a safeguard, if there is a problem with the recording service, affected users are automatically logged off so unrecorded trades cannot take place.

Martin Ryan, Group Chief Operating Officer of TP ICAP, said: “Our global broking business enables our clients to execute trades across multiple asset classes and markets.  Excellent client service is a prerequisite, and this system enables us to meet those demands. BT’s deep knowledge of voice and collaboration technology complements our wider ambitions to improve the efficiency of our client-facing services.”

Bernadette Wightman, managing director, banking and financial services, BT, said: “We look forward to working with TP ICAP to give its brokers the best technology experiences when communicating with colleagues and customers. TP ICAP prides itself in excellence in everything it does, so we’re delighted it has chosen our BT Trading platform as it transforms its trading floor operations to enhance agility, customer service and compliance.

Source: BT