ICAP Global Broking plans to turn its Fusion multi-asset trading, market-data, and news portal into a fully compliant HTML5 application.

The broker is running its Apache Flex-based application in a container provided by OpenFin, which allows rich Internet applications like Fusion to run outside a Web browser.

“That’s one of the big benefits that OpenFin gives us,” said Dean Berry, CEO of eCommerce at ICAP Global Broking. “We’re actually able to migrate over an extended period rather than having to do it overnight, because OpenFin allows Flex and HTML5 applications to run side-by-side.”

ICAP decided to make the move to improve the trading experience of Fusion users, according to Berry.

“We see a lot of our clients do a lot of their trading from one of the modules we offer, which basically allows them to drag and drop multiple instruments from any asset class in to their watch list,” he said. “Using that capability and an advanced alert engine, traders can have a full desktop experience without taking up too much screen real estate.”

Previously, users of the Flex-based Fusion platform only could run the application within a browser, which limited their ability to customize Fusion’s layout to their liking.

“With screen real estate being very important to our client base, we’re able to offer them a truly tailored experience whereby they can customize the size and layout however they wish and lock and save that environment,” said Berry. “When they log back in, the screen reopens in that format.

ICAP also plans to introduce an alerting feature with the HTML5 version of Fusion, which was not possible with the browser version of the application.

“If traders have their browser minimized, they won’t be able to see that there is an alert on the screen or if something else is happening,” explained Mazy Dar, CEO of OpenFin. “By using OpenFin’s notification API and some javascript, ICAP can push a pop-up notification to alert traders that something has happened. Traders then can click on the popup and invoke the application.”

However, ICAP will roll out the alerting function on a selective basis, said Berry.

ICAP has deployed the latest version of the application to more than 40 sell-side firms. Some of the firms have rolled it out to all of their traders while other are still testing it with a subset of their traders.

Even after ICAP completes Fusion’s HTML5 migration, the plan is to keep a browser-based version of the platform available for clients who cannot or will not deploy container-based applications within their organizations, according to Berry.

Featured image Dollar Photo Club