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Banca IMI Leverages Patsystems XLink 

Banca IMI takes J-Trader and XLink

Banca IMI is the securities arm of Banca Intesa, Italy's second largest banking group. Since 2000, Banca IMI's London office has been home to the group's consolidated listed derivatives business. Its clients include European Banks, Financial Institutions and Online Brokers.

Using Patsystems J-Trader and XLink products, Banca IMI has been able to expand the customer base of its futures and options operation by offering easy, low cost access to a broad range of exchanges. Thanks to the scalability of the technology, Banca IMI has leveraged its local expertise to become the dominant Italian broker in the futures market.

Partnerships for mutual growth

With the increasing globalisation in the futures markets, Banca IMI has been faced with customers requesting access to a growing list of exchanges around the world. While providing an expanded service is crucial to retaining these customers, purchasing new exchange memberships is not always an economical way to keep pace with demand. The solution is XLink, a powerful software tool that enables multiple Patsystems users to interconnect and utilise each other's exchange memberships.

Banca IMI has memberships to six futures exchanges, and by using XLink to establish partnerships with other banks around the world, it is able to offer access to a further five exchanges, with another three in the pipeline. In return, Banca IMI's partner banks are able to provide their customers with access to Borsa Italiana's IDEM market. All without any additional strain on the end users, who simply see the additional markets on their familiar trading screens.

"Using XLink we see benefits in two directions," Banca IMI says. "We provide our customers with a single access point to the expanding range of markets they want to trade without the need for additional memberships. At the same time, we leverage the memberships we do have to attract flow from around the world."

System of choice

The vast majority of Banca IMI's futures business, both customer and proprietary, is routed via the Patsystems J-Trader platform. Banca IMI conducts regular reviews of its vendor relationships and J-Trader has consistently come out on top when compared to the other futures trading systems on the market.

"The critical factors for our customers are ease of use and ease of installation, and on these criteria Patsystems wins hands down," Banca IMI states. "We can have J-Trader installed via the internet a matter of hours after signing a new customer, and the interface is so simple to use we can offer them training over the telephone."

Banca IMI also offers API connectivity for customers with their own front end trading screen, such as online retail brokers.

Business Benefits

Through its XLink connection to other members of the Patsystems user community, Banca IMI has developed a cost effective way to broaden their service offering. It is thus able to combine global exchange access with local expertise and relationships – a compelling proposition that enables Banca IMI to compete with much larger institutions and even outperform them in its home market.

By offering both the J-Trader front end and API access, Banca IMI has been able rapidly to meet its customers various remote connectivity requirements, generating a threefold increase in trade volumes since 2000.

"J-Trader and XLink have enabled us to build out our remote connectivity while keeping the organisation lean" Banca IMI reports. "In a climate of narrowing margins and increasing competition, we have not only held our own against the larger players but aggressively grown our business. The scalability, capabilities and ease of deployment of Patsystems technology has been integral to that growth."