BNP Paribas and Fidessa Group have recently announced the signing of a partnership deal which will provide the bank’s buy-side clients with access to Fidessa’s futures and options workstation.

Moreover, BNP Paribas will be obligated to distribute Fidessa’s derivatives trading platform, branded Cortex Listed, to its institutional clients across all regions. This according to the firm, will provide its clients fully-hosted execution capabilities.

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Old allies

This is not the first time the two organizations entered into a partnership. In 2016, BNP Paribas, for the first time, implemented Fidessa’s derivatives trading platform. Fidessa with its hubs in Chicago, London, and Hong Kong provided massive support to the bank’s global futures and options trading operations.

Commenting on the partnership, Gael Pottiez, Global Head of Product Development, Derivatives Execution and Clearing at BNP Paribas, said: “We believe that leveraging Fidessa technology for our Cortex Listed platform reflects the future direction of the marketplace because it combines advanced trading and order analytics in a highly robust platform to deliver a powerful futures trading experience. And with an increasing number of our buy-side clients looking for specialized execution services we’re pleased to be able to meet that requirement with Fidessa GT.”

A good year so far

Earlier this year, Fidessa integrated a native Solace adapter on its trading platform to boost throughput and resilience between Fidessa applications and customer firms’ Solace messaging infrastructure. Moreover, the London-headquartered firm agreed to a takeover by Swiss fintech ‎company Temenos in a deal worth up to £1.4 billion ($1.96 billion). This came after the firm’s announcement of a year-on-year revenue increase of seven percent, reaching £353.9 million.

This year, BNP Paribas, on the other hand, was focussed on expanding its investments in various startups. The bank, in February, launched a new investment fund with the purpose of locating and investing in technology startups that are creating innovative solutions in the financial services and insurance industries. The asset management wing of the bank is also betting on the blockchain technology and has successfully tested its own blockchain.

“We’re delighted to be working with BNP Paribas to deliver the benefits of our technology to their end clients. Whilst ambitious, our GT strategy has been to develop the best-connected futures workstation on the market; one that provides exceptional execution capabilities whilst meeting the stringent performance, security and regulatory requirements that the industry demands today. This new deal with BNP Paribas is further validation of that strategy,” Justin Llewellyn-Jones, Fidessa’s Global Head of Derivatives, said.