Archive for the ‘Special Features’ Category

When The Charles Schwab Corporation bought CyberTrader, the direct access, high-tech trading brokerage, in March 2000, it acquired much more than a broker-dealer for very active traders. Schwab obtained a leading-edge technology firm that was profitable in its own business of supporting sophisticated strategic traders. CyberTrader was also fully capable of providing Schwab with cutting-edge, money saving Microsoft-based technology that transformed its brokerage business.... Full story

Managing institutional money, some of it in alpha strategies, makes significant demands on real-time market data and fast analytics. So Bridgewater Associates, a Westport, CT-based firm that managed $150 billion in global investments for a wide array of institutional clients, used stream processing software from StreamBase to build some key components in its investment infrastructure – only a few of which it will discuss publicly. Bridgewater ... Full story

The International Securities Exchange, which is already the world's largest equity options exchange, is moving into electronic stock trading in the third quarter with a platform designed for high-speed electronic and algorithmic trading. For options, the ISE developed an innovative market structure, using technology from OMX, which integrated auction market principles into an advanced screen-based trading system, and launched the first fully-electronic US options exchange in ... Full story

Without a doubt, the online channel is the most cost-effective way for financial institutions of all sizes to deliver their services. It also delivers a strong ROI: research from The Boston Consulting Group and other research firms has shown that online banking users are over 30% more profitable than offline users, while bill payers are ... Full story

Richard Korthammer, Lava's CEO With its strange mix of new luxury condo buildings, nondescript offices and auto repair shops, the Morton Street area in the West Village looks like just one more New York neighborhood that is pushing the geographical envelope of gentrification. It does not look like ... Full story

In April 2004 Micro Focus and Microsoft announced the creation of a new alliance, the Mainframe Migration Alliance, to enable the migration of critical proprietary mainframe systems onto the Microsoft Windows operating system using Microsoft .NET technology. Laying the technology foundation to move application workloads from the mainframe to more modern Intel architecture and the Windows Server platform, the alliance’s mission has been to help ... Full story

When a major international bank bought a large North American finance company, there were concerns the finance company would take its new parent into risky lending where it had little experience. Investor fears were calmed by the finance company's use of software from Santa Fe-based Strategic Analytics, which predicted bad debt provisions accurately ... Full story

Capitol Indemnity Corp. in Middleton, WI, had been using the AQS commercial policy administration system since the days when it ran on green screens in MS-DOS. So when the software vendor came out with AQS/advantage running on Windows, making the move to the new system was a natural. “We converted to the AQS/advantage application ... Full story

HP has carved out a niche for itself in application modernization, and specifically now in legacy mainframe application modernization. When undertaking such work, it’s essential to focus on the entire environment – not just a single application – and it’s what HP has been doing for years. According to Richard Holling, director, insurance sector, financial services at HP, "In the 1990's, modernization meant mainly transitioning ... Full story

One of India's leading IT Services companies, HCL provides software-led IT, BPO and infrastructure management services. Over 2,000-person years of experience in providing solutions to the insurance industry has led HCL to reduce the cost, risk and time-to-market for new solutions by over 30%, says Andrew Gibson, head of HCL’s North American insurance practice. ... Full story