IM Trust, a Santiago brokerage, leverages Fidessa technology to provide direct market access.

As electronic trading takes hold across Latin America, investment firms are providing advanced trading tools and quality execution services to augment their portfolio of services.

IM Trust, a Santiago-based full-service brokerage house, has tapped Fidessa to act as its core technology platform. The firm will use Fidessa as its sell-side trading system provider on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis to ensure local and foreign clients quality execution with advanced electronic trading tools.

IM Trust will also be leveraging Fidessa’s global community to support plans for regional and international expansion.

“Service and connectivity are key elements to our expansion,” Hernan Arellano, partner and head of equities at IM Trust, told Markets Media. “Fidessa is already connected to a significant number of our clients and with the Bolsa de Santiago.”

IM Trust has a diversified client base, including corporations, institutional investors, governments, endowments and high-net-worth individuals in Chile, and is launching operations in the Andean Region (Peru and Colombia). It provides a comprehensive set of products and services, including financial advisories, asset management and capital market intermediation.

The Fidessa implementation is a strategic move for IM Trust as investors across the world and locally turn their attention to Latin America. “We knew we needed the best possible technology to compete in the global markets and offer the best execution service in LatAm,” said Arellano.

Andean markets continue to experience impressive growth in market levels and volumes as the exchanges continue to work to develop their internal and external trading infrastructure.

Chile is an important hub of expertise from which to also gain exposure to fellow MILA participants Peru and Colombia, and as expansion takes place geographically, as well as in electronic trading,

Fidessa is continuing to expand its presence in Latin America.

“This is a significant and strategic customer win,” Alice Botis, head of business development in Latin America for Fidessa, told Markets Media. “We will be delivering a trading system to accommodate Chilean trading requirements, which will be expanded to Peru and Colombia in 2012.”

Fidessa is enabling both its regional and international clients to trade more effectively across Latin America. It has extended the capabilities of its Mexico and Brazilian trading platforms and increased the reach of its trading network, which now has more than 3,000 members from both the buy side and sell side, covering more than 154 markets across EMEA, Asia Pacific and the Americas.

In Mexico, Grupo Financiero Banorte (GFNorte) has joined the Fidessa connectivity network. As Mexico’s third largest financial institution, the presence of GFNorte considerably enhances the reach of the Fidessa network in Latin America, and offers network members access to proximity hosted and co-located DMA to Mexico’s stock exchange, the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV).