FixSpec Aims to Improve Connections in Electronic Markets, Launches Central

FixSpec, a financial technology provider that delivers simplified business solutions for firms connecting with exchanges and Liquidity providers has announced the launch of its latest initiative, Central, a new enterprise platform that aims to deliver improved customer service, monitoring and operational efficiency when making and maintaining trading connections.

FixSpec was founded in 2012, by the former Head of Product Management at NASDAQ OMX, Chris Lees. The firms core objectives are to simplify the approach participants take when connecting between trading venues. Mr Lees explained to Forex Magnates in a telephone interview: “The core vision for FixSpec is to build tools that help brokers and exchanges connect more easily to their customers. In today's world of electronic trading, it seems nonsensical to us that making connections still revolves around long, boring PDF documents and manual testing.”

Central offers a wide array of functionality, combining real-time business monitoring and Analytics designed for both business and technical users, with online project management tools.

One of its core elements is its patent-pending, alerting algorithm which is capable of detecting software and/or behavioural change by trading counterparties, which may pose a technical or compliance risk.

Central allows business managers to:

• Watch client activity in real-time

• Understand and analyse the functionality in use by clients

• See a live view of expected customer implementation dates

• Identify inactive network lines.

Central allows on-boarders, support and compliance teams to:

• Visually search fully-decoded messages

• Receive alerts of software and/or behavioural change by counterparties

• Run on-the-spot certifications based on activity in existing environments (including production), without additional emulators or scripting

"We have applied some cutting-edge technology to problems consistently faced by brokers and exchanges today: how to improve our relationship and overall customer service proposition while doing more with fewer resources. In particular, brokers are looking to save money by eliminating 'dark lines', how to better coordinate across internal departments, how to monitor very high transaction environments and how to extend compliance oversight to detect counterparty change" explains Mr Lees in a statement to the press.

FixSpec is asset class agnostic and Lees explained to Forex Magnates how participants in the FX markets can benefit from their service saying : “In the example we discussed of a broker such as FX Broker X connecting to a venue such as LP 1, we would offer solutions to LP 1 to allow FX Broker X (and other members) to connect to them faster, as well as a tool to help them monitor their inbound connections. FX Broker X would have 24x7 access to a simulation environment, designed to perfectly replicate the LP 1 environment to regression test, test upgrades etc.”