Guest blog post by Jhoan Checho, Sales Director, Financial Services Practice, FiberMedia Group
An article written by Alison Crosthwait, managing director of Global Market Structure Research titled ‘Pockets of Opportunity in 2012’ caught my attention a couple of weeks ago. She writes about the new trends facing traders today while also observing the development made over the past years that will create ‘pockets of opportunities,’ which she predicts, will create a competitively fierce market.
The seven global market structure trends cited in Crosthwait’s article are 1) consolidation, 2) The politicizing of regulation, 3) Execution Management Systems, 4) maturation of high frequency trading, 5) complex spread trading technology, 6) merger failures and resource constraints, 7) new market competition: Australia, Brazil and Korea.
While consolidation has occurred, Crosthwait is quick to observe that trading volumes have not picked up as a result. An area of interest she explores is the cost of technology and regulatory compliance. According to Crosthwait it has skyrocketed – but has it?
Yes there are greater capital requirements and the implementations to prepare for the Volcker Rule, a specific section of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the technology changes required by companies will be expensive to implement. But does it have to be?
Certainly there are network providers that are designing and constructing new dark fiber systems to support the strict requirements outlined by the Acts, but there are also new technologies that can be deployed that can keep costs manageable. Let’s consider Cloud Computing as a manageable cost platform that financial companies can leverage. Cloud Computing, though not necessarily the optimal infrastructure for complex or even simplex transactions, it can be a highly efficient way to connect to general day-to-day operation systems and could offer a varied and effective back-up system to a number of other type of transactions. If Cloud Computing isn’t your ‘thing,’ consider the flexibility and dynamic capabilities of Ethernet switching. But that’s just the network side of it all.
A network needs a good home – a place where it has the foundation to connect to information, reliable power sources and can be in a secure – sometimes even hidden – environment that protects and assures the uptime capabilities of the equipment it contains. A company needs a data center that offers a unique infrastructure with redundant capabilities, scalable footprint that can be managed by a trusted team. And proximity to other marketplace enablers like trading exchanges and market engines as well as data platforms is inherent to finding the right data center partner.
FiberMedia knows that reliability, scalability, and security are the key foundations of the right data center partner for the financial services industry. The company also knows that budgets to manage all aspects of a business are being constrained. For 36-months, FiberMedia has guarantees a rate-lock for its services. This provides revenue assurance for companies as they are challenged with managing budgets to ensure business growth. With static costs in-tow, access to a competitive service provider landscape and proximity to the trading engines that propel your business, FiberMedia’s managed data center solutions can be the anchor you need to keep your business a float.
Find out more by contacting saleshelp@fibermedia.net today.
Originally posted on Broadband Nation.
