Contineo has reached an agreement with FIX technology and network provider Ullink to implement and manage the platform's FIX network in a move to lower costs, increase products access and provide support in all aspects of risk management.
Many investment banks, said Mark Muñoz (pictured), managing director at Contineo, have connectivity via Ullink today and Contineo wanted to leverage that expertise and time to market.
"Ullink has a comprehensive understanding of the structured products industry, and they are already providing services to many of our subscribers," he said. "Ullink provides us with the ability to implement the connectivity of the sell-side with the Contineo platform via our FIX API in a streamlined and efficient manner. We are currently testing [Ullink's] FIX connectivity [which we expect to] be plugged-in in June."
Philippe Thomas, managing director at Ullink Asia, said in a statement that the firm's FIX network will provide Contineo with "an efficient and robust connectivity solution" to develop and grow the business more quickly by allowing more participants into their trading network.
The aim of Contineo, said Muñoz, is to add tools and capabilities with the ultimate goal of creating a market standard and streamline processes for request for quotation (RFQ), order management and post-trade processing.
"We don't create structured products, we don't hedge products and we don't provide software development either," he said. "We operate an advisory organisation that serves all participants. [Ullink's FIX messaging backbone] will provide faster access to the market."
The APAC platform segment has got crowded during Q1 2015 with up to four different platforms fighting to plug private banks offering structured products in the region including the multi-issuer investment products distribution system (IPDS) launched by Leonteq AG, DBS, Avaloq and Numerix; the FinIQ EQ Connect platform, powered by Thomson Reuters DataScope; and Vontobel's deritrade.
Despite the increased competition, Muñoz believes that there is room in the market for others to offer complementary services, and sees some of the developments in the platform segment from other networks and software providers as complementary rather than competitive.
"However, there seems to be confusion in the market about what the different platforms offer," he said. "Contineo is connecting the sell-side and the buy-side, offers a variety of payoffs, underlyings and structures, as well as access to pricing from a number of leading issuers of structured products.
We want to stress that Contineo offers a completely different service to that of a traditional software provider."
Contineo is counting on the support of some of the top banks in the structured products industry to establish the business by providing access to a multi-issuer platform that is fully backed by a number of issuers and has the objective of creating standards in the market for other players to participate.
"We offer a straightforward simplified application to plug in different issuers of structured products and provide private banks with access to pricing," he said. "We are working on adding our subscribers to the network and our focus is on going live this quarter. Recent announcements have fuelled confusion and we want to focus on what is being offered. We want to focus on what we have and what we offer as a multi-issuer platform."
Contineo is backed by a consortium of banks including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Barclays, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale, as well as technology firm AG Delta. Ullink is a global provider of multi-asset trading technology and infrastructure for buy-side and sell-side providers.