Resources Financial Markets

The BT Radianz story

Today the BT Radianz Cloud has the largest global reach of any financial networking community, providing connectivity to 170 countries.

Since the start of 2014, we have made 1,840 new connections to services and applications offered by cloud community members, and more than 160 new applications have been made available to our cloud community.

Our new drive to bring the latest in fintech innovation
on to the Radianz Cloud will help our community members
sustain their competitive edge

Our client list boasts some of the largest names across the capital markets, including investment banks, buy-side firms and trading venue operators. We are the world’s largest FIX ready network and our products and solutions span the entire trade life cycle from beginning to end – from pre-trade, through to trade and post-trade.

In 2014 alone we added 70 new global customers.

Over the past 1.5 decades we've never stopped innovating and adding to the depth and breadth of our global portfolio.

As high speed electronic trading took off, we pioneered hosting and connectivity services like BT Radianz Proximity, Ultra and BT Radianz Venue Interconnnect that allow customers to co-locate trading engines near execution venues to reduce latency and optimise trading strategies.

The right touch

Last year we rolled out our new BT Netrix HiTouch – a cloud-integrated touchscreen trading turret designed to allow traders to rapidly access trading the applications and market data feeds available on their secured network, and to share market information with clients through the platform’s voice, video and conferencing services, delivered through the BT Radianz Cloud. We also unveiled BT One Radianz, which integrates BT Netrix trading turrets with Netrix HiTouch, enabling voice and video collaboration across the Radianz Cloud.

“We designed the BT Netrix HiTouch in collaboration with traders, for traders,” says Robin Farnan, managing director at BT Financial Technology Services. “We enable clients to utilise a blend of trading strategies, from high-touch, human-to-human trading and advice, to low-touch electronic trading and hybrid broker-assisted electronic trading.

”BT Netrix HiTouch helps manage client and colleague interaction, so sell-side traders can multi-task seamlessly and collaborate quickly to make faster and more informed decisions, ensuring they are first to clients with opportunities and expertise,” he explains.

And as regulation surrounding the financial services industry has become ever more demanding, the need for proactive surveillance has led us to introduce mobile recording functionality – first in the UK and then to the US and the rest of the world.

Managed compliance services will also be a top priority for BT Radianz in the coming months, particularly helping application providers to deliver applications-as-a-service via our global cloud.

Targeting fintech

So what of our plans for the future? Our drive to innovate and meet the needs of an increasingly complex industry will see us develop a whole new generation of Radianz services.

We are planning to not only extend our managed connectivity and hosting services, but to drive added-value content and services. So we'll be expanding core venue services, providing Layer 2/Ethernet access and managed connectivity within and between more venues.

Fintech start-up companies in particular are a growing source of innovation for the global financial markets industry and the Radianz Cloud offers them a fast and highly scalable route to market for their solutions. By hosting their solutions in data centres connected to the Radianz Cloud they can deliver services to thousands of community members globally. Fintech start-ups like Algomi, Squawker and Virtual Clarity are already taking advantage of this route to market.

“Since its launch 15 years ago, Radianz has been a driving force of innovation and today, our community members are as keen as ever to find new ways to grow,” explains Tom Regent, President, Global Banking and Financial Markets, BT Global Services. “Our new drive to bring the latest in fintech innovation onto the Radianz Cloud will help our community members sustain their competitive edge, meet regulatory requirements and create new opportunities to grow.”