Sell-Side Technology Awards 2013: Best Sell-Side Trading Network ─ IPC

FMN incorporates four primary IPC product areas: Connexus, IPC's financial extranet; Direct Connect; Trader Voice; and Enhanced Voice Services (EVS). The scale is enormous ─ FMN spans 115,000 route miles, runs through 60 different countries, covers 700 cities, and boasts over 5,000 connections. As a fully managed service, it supports industry-standard protocols such as FIX and Swift messaging, along with multicast market data distribution. The inclusion of IPC's extranet and voice services means that FMN is capable of handling the full range of data and connectivity methods, ranging from private wires through to managed virtual private networks and co-located services.

The inclusion of Connexus, one of the jewels in IPC's crown, which celebrated its first anniversary in January, means FMN can support the entire trade lifecycle, covering order creation and placement through to execution, clearing, settlement and reporting. The inclusion of over 60 venues such as exchanges and multilateral trading facilities provides potentially vast sources of liquidity for participants on the network.

In the past five years, IPC has continued to invest in the underlying infrastructure of its network and its core capacity. In the US, dark fiber, 2.5 Gbps wave and 10 Gbps wave connectivity offerings are available, with equivalents in European, Asia-Pacific, and Transoceanic routes as well.

As a company, IPC has expanded into new regions with the signing of its first mainland Chinese client, and a string of other big-name wins, while its internal consolidation of business lines into a managed services unit has provided a renewed focus for the firm going forward. While the world itself is increasingly networked in every aspect, approaching it with care and dedication remains paramount, something that IPC has excelled at.

The inclusion of IPC's extranet and voice services means that FMN is capable of handling the full range of data and connectivity methods, ranging from private wires through to managed virtual private networks and co-located services.

IPC REACTION

"We're honored to be selected as the best sell-side trading network in the inaugural Sell-Side Technology Awards. Although our Financial Markets Network may feature the newest and most advanced technology in the market, it is only a part of the reason for our success. With 40 years of experience serving the capital markets, we know that technology isn't a solution in and of itself-it's how you leverage that technology to provide services that makes the difference. The result is that IPC's Financial Markets Network connects more than 200,000 users, and facilitates more than $1 trillion of capital markets trading, daily, across all asset classes around the world."

Joe Pickel, vice president, network services product management, IPC Systems