FlexTrade Builds Augmented Reality Trading Application

The new software can create three-dimensional graphs, charts and order blotters that can be seen through Microsoft’s headset. 

Augmented vs Virtual

Andy Mahoney, business development director of FlexTrade, tells WatersTechnology that the vendor has been experimenting with virtual reality technology for over a year. 

“The virtually reality headset completely immerses you in a virtual world,” he says. “We found from initial trader feedback was that it was quite difficult to conceptualize how it would work on a real trading desk.” 

FlexTrade focused on augmented reality, which doesn’t cut off the user from the real world. 

“It’s a headset where you can see everything around you,” Mahoney says. “The difference is that you can save a series of keywords in the headsets to create charts, order blotter and graphs. And when you say those words wherever you’re looking in space, it would show them in that virtual space about two meters in front of you.”

[For a deeper look at how augmented reality may change the capital markets in the future, click here.]

How it Works 

Through Microsoft’s headset, FlexTrade users will be able to walk through a graph or move to the other side of it to watch it from the other direction and ultimately generate a three-dimensional graph.  

The software also provides FlexAlerts, the vendor’s mobile alert application. Mahoney says that in augmented reality this alert will appear off-screen when looking at a normal trading blotter. 

“We literally mean it will appear outside the screen space,” says Mahoney. “You can look at the alert and say ‘acknowledge,’ which will bring you to the same order on the blotter that triggered that alert.” 

FlexAR uses FlexTrade’s existing open architecture from the FlexTrade EMS. It is a piece of software that sits on Microsoft’s HoloLens headset. “It connects via a secure line to the backend of FlexTrader, and then it just hooks into FlexTrader,” says Mahoney. “So all the trades that you’re doing through augmented reality, all the alerts, are still saved as part of FlexTrader and all your trade history is there.” 

Heavy Headsets

Mahoney says there are some things that need to happen before the new technology sees widespread adoption by trading desks. “The headsets need to obviously be more advanced and lighter in weight,” says Mahoney. “But as the technology evolves we want to be very much at the forefront of this.”

However, he says, this demonstrates that financial technology is keeping pace with the consumer space. “It’s probably maybe three to five years away from being something that you could see at a trading desk,” Mahoney says. “It will be expanding as more people start working from home and more people at the trading desk get more evolved.”