Site Report Domino/Notes at core of I-Net Bridge`s retail investment exchange

I-Net Bridge, an online financial and business intelligence service provider serving financial professionals, the corporate market and the private investor, has implemented at its core a LotusDomino and Notes solution that enables MarkIT Explorer, the I-Net Bridge Exchange for trading retail investment products.

MarkIT Explorer connects unit trust companies, linked product providers, asset managers, financial advisors, portals and consumers.

"We are providing ASP solutions to our intermediary clients (financial advisors and portals) that allow their customers in turn to consolidate and aggregate their financial investments," says Brian May of I-Net Bridge Retail Financial Solutions.

The service from I-Net Bridge alleviates the inefficiencies of the previous paper-based value chain that made it difficult for financial advisors to run their business. "Most financial advisory practices deal with a number of different suppliers which makes it difficult for them to aggregate and consolidate their clients` portfolios," he says.

MarkIT Explorer eliminates the interface problems of disparate IT systems as well as the limitations of the paper system.

A primary benefit of this online service is risk management, which benefits all the participants in the retail investment industry value chain, including investors, intermediaries and product suppliers.

"Previously, investment product suppliers carried most of the risk in a transaction due to the possibility of error during the data capture process. Now, that risk is handed back to the customer, who initiates the transaction using forms that dynamically validate their input against the suppliers` business rules, and then forwards the transaction to the supplier," says May.

He explains that part of the problem in the paper environment was that there was little or no rollback, especially where faxes were concerned. With MarkIT Explorer, clients now have a complete audit trail. .

The ability of Lotus Domino and Notes to interface with all these systems has allowed I-Net Bridge to deliver its service. "It makes no difference to a customer who might be using a Compaq server with Windows NT that we use Sun Solaris and an Oracle database to power our service," he adds.

"We chose Lotus because Domino answered all our needs and offered close integration with all our other applications. The replication service of Domino is also an important feature to us, as it simplifies the distribution of data and functionality."

May says I-Net Bridge Retail Financial Solutions` not-too-distant expansion plans include offering customers access to the product ranges of banks, assurance companies and locally registered offshore unit trust companies. May adds that there is opportunity to export the entire infrastructure into other markets around the world.