Bridge Market Data Preparing To Roll Out Cut-Rate Money Market Service

A new low-end money market quotation service is being readied by St. Louis-based Bridge Market Data. Aimed at small banks, the service will rely on data contributed by larger regional banks, and will cost as little as $300/month.

Launch of Bridge's Money Market Service awaits completion of the company's new Ku-band satellite network (MTR, April 1986), and "debugging" of relations with contributor banks, says Buford Smith, president of Bridge's communications unit. The product has been in test since last year, and active marketing will begin "in the not too distant future," he says. "The target market is small banks" -- those with under $500 million in total assets, says Smith. Bridge has no interest in mixing it up with the likes of Telerate, Reuters, SPMI, or Knight-Ridder and won't try to compete for the business of money center banks. "We tend to be far downstream from that," he says. As a result, the service will rely on regional banks -- like Dallas's Mbank -- as contributors.

The Bridge MMS will be a one-way service in most cases, says Smith, and will be deliverable to IBM-PCs or dedicated terminals. The service's second-tier approach is confirmed by its pricing, which will start at $300/month. Coverage will include prices and yields on domestic and international money market instruments, forex quotations, and financial futures prices.