IBM To Carry Aregon's Fist; British Telecom Shows How

As its value-added reseller agreement with British Telecom (CBP) Ltd. unit starts to bear fruit, Aregon International Ltd., the London-based trading systems supplier, has sealed a shared revenue agreement with IBM for Aregon's FIST product.

FIST (Financial Information Systems Toolkit), which uses digital technology, provides users with the capability of developing applications without modifying the existing trading environment, even if that environment is based on a video switch. The system previously was available only on Digital Equipment Corp. VAX/VMS platforms.

According to Jeremy Wood, Aregon International executive director, the IBM accord is a "pretty significant" one for both companies. Aregon stands to gain from IBM's huge presence worldwide, while for Big Blue the move represents a positive step into the trading systems market, where its success has been limited. Aregon's relationship with DEC, meanwhile, remains "close," and will continue that way, Wood says.

IBM currently markets the International (London) Stock Exchange RDXII video-based trading system. What the Aregon deal means for that relationship is unclear. IBM officials couldn't be reached, but Wood said that because FIST is compatible with both video and digital information systems, it's likely that the two will coexist.

That's the line IBM was toeing in its latest internal newsletter. In it, Keith Gold, finance manager for product development, said: "Banks with video equipment installed today will be able to use FIST alongside existing systems and move gradually at low cost into this new technology."

FIST, running on the VMS operating system, is currently available on all DEC VAX computers. The IBM accord means that the system will now run AIX on the 6150 and PS/2 machines. Other hardware manufacturers may be waiting in the wings. Wood says Aregon has "a very close working relationship" with Unisys Corp.; an accord between the two could be struck soon.

FIST was launched in November 1987 and was ordered for installation at more than 30 sites last year. The system is aimed at providing traders with the means of quickly applying their market knowledge to the dealing terminal without major systems modification. "We see FIST as the MS-DOS of the trading room," Wood says. It allows the dealer to choose how internal and external digital information feeds are presented on his screen.

In a recent assessment of FIST by a large U.K. brokerage, the institution's dealers were able to set up a system to spot arbitrage opportunities between U.K. domestic equities and their respective American Depositary Receipts in less than half a day, Wood says.

The fruit of Aregon's agreement with CBP is RADS (Rapid Application Development System), an integrated voice-data product that will be marketed both as a stand-alone and as an enhancement of the company's existing Integrated Trading System (ITS) dealer turret.

According to Mike Noy, head of marketing at CBP, RADS enhances FIST by providing access to British Telecom's X.400 products, as well as adding telephony. While X.400 is widely associated with electronic mail applications, CBP has integrated it into RADS as a toolkit that strips relevant information from digital feeds.

RADS voice-data integration system permits a dealer to set a limit on an instrument and instruct the system to telephone a pre-established counterparty the moment that limit is reached. At the same time, the system automatically displays the trader's latest dealings with that counterparty. The system can also be programmed to page the dealer should any limit be reached, providing him with the relevant data on a message screen incorporated in the pager.

RADS' configuration at the trading position can take the form of any combination of a screen, a turret -- conventional or plasma -- and a keyboard. The trader may access incoming data feeds via either the turret, using the RADS phone function, or the keyboard.

RADS, described by CBP as a set of building blocks rather than a defined product in itself, will be available only on DEC VAX machines running VMS. Noy says CBP has plans to develop the system to run on UNIX and AIX, which he believes will make RADS available to a host of new users.

The system currently handles the ISE's Topicline and CRS feeds, and Reuters RDCDF and Telerate TDPF services. Other feeds are scheduled for development.