Citi Australia Gets New Link to ASX

2 August 2004

SYDNEY—Citigroup Australia has gone live with new connectivity to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) that is based on the Financial Information Exchange (FIX) protocol.

Citigroup has deployed a FIX-based gateway from Cameron Systems that links selected clients to the Stock Exchange Automated Trading System (SEATS) of the ASX, bank officials confirm. In addition to the CameronFIX SEATS Interface, the firm has also deployed Cameron’s Market Mirror, a module for keeping track of the state of orders in a market. The FIX protocol enables the real-time electronic communication of pre-trade and trade messages among financial institutions, primarily investment managers, broker/dealers, ECNs and stock exchanges.

The CameronFIX SEATS is a component of the vendor’s Direct Market Access (DMA) architecture that works with the CameronFIX engine to help FIX messages interact with the execution capabilities of SEATS. The new interface gives Citigroup Australia and select clients standard FIX connections as well as the ability to handle complex SEATS operations via the ASX, officials say.

"We saw the value in an adapter that talks to SEATS and is also integrated with a FIX engine," says Ben Valentine, vice president, equity electronic trading at Citigroup in Australia. "We approached Cameron Systems to discuss whether they were able to develop an interface solution that would meet our requirements, which are primarily to trade large volumes via FIX in a timely manner. The solution Cameron Systems developed is just what we were after for simplifying the trading process and they were able to deliver it in the time-frame we required."

The CameronFIX SEATS Interface was released July 26 and enables ASX broker counterparties to interface with the ASX trading platform. The SEATS Interface can also be used to manage SEATS operations such as upward quantity amendments that require the introduction of split orders on SEATS. The Interface supports load balancing across multiple SEATS gateways to service multiple FIX clients simultaneously.

CameronFIX provides comprehensive support for the FIX protocol specification versions 4.0 to 4.4 and workflows, including indications of interest (IOI), orders, lists, executions, and allocations. CameronFIX is deployed globally across more than 15 countries throughout Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

A spokesperson for Cameron Systems says that in furthering its support for the Asia Pacific market, Cameron had to expand its operations in the region with the opening of a new Sydney office in June. The Sydney office is headed by Trevor Jarett, sales director, Asia Pacific, and Hugh Emberson, technical director, Asia Pacific. Jarett joins the company from Bloomberg Australia where he was a general manager. Cameron Systems is currently hiring a senior developer to join the Sydney team. The Sydney office is supported by general administration staff.

Cameron also has offices in New York, London and Melbourne, Australia. Cameron Systems Support and Reseller Partners are located in France (Alcion), Germany (PSH Consulting), South Africa (Peresys), Japan (MetaBit), Hong Kong (Infocast) and the U.S. (Aegis).

Source: Dealing with Technology