Software and systems development company Brampton York has launched its first commercial product, BOSS, developed to assist communications between stock broking firms and asset managers.
The software provides annuity revenue for the company, as it is rented to clients with support provided by Brampton York, rather than sold outright.
BOSS is an acronym for Bid Offer Spread System, which Brampton York MD Stuart Mackereth says is somewhat of a misnomer.
"The name was applied in the beginning when it was still being developed," he says. BOSS was originally intended only to communicate bids and offers brokers had on their books.
However, Mackereth says, as market players approached the company and explained their needs, the company began adding functionality to the software.
"Simply stated, BOSS is a unique and innovative financial services product that has been designed to assist communications between the stock broking community and asset management houses.
"When communicating, stocks are advertised as a buy or a sell - commonly known as an indication of interest, or IOI.
"At the institutions, bids and offers need to be monitored, consolidated and acted upon by institutional traders. This form of communication has traditionally been either manually executed via telephone or through other larger, more expensive, electronic systems."
An easy-to-use interface allows the stockbroker to capture the bids and offers as they come about, Mackereth says.
The information is encrypted and sent to the institutional trader via a standard e-mail system. The information, on arrival at the institution, is added to a database that interacts with an existing asset management system. The trader is alerted to the arrival of new bids and offers and to any immediate matches found in the asset management system.
At this point, the institutional trader can effect a transaction telephonically, or electronically forward the information to the portfolio manager.
Marketing director Darryl Wolfaardt says there are other IOI products in the market, but none build a database like BOSS does. He adds that at the time the software was being developed the company did not realise the value of that function until clients resisted attempts to remove it.
"We are not a technology company just taking a product to the market," he says. "We listened to the market and what people needed and then developed it."
"We have been blown away by the response to the product. We have captured some of the largest brokerages and asset managers in the country," says Mackereth.
"To date, BOSS has been successfully implemented in eight international brokerages operating in SA. Although we were confident that the response to the product would be positive, we did not anticipate such a rapid rate of acceptance."
Related stories:
Brampton York joins UDDI community
Share
