OPERATIONS

Con Edison Communication (CEC) and the Securities Industry Automation Corporation (SIAC) -- the technology subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange -- announced an agreement to build the new Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure (SFTI). SFTI will provide member firms with a new way to connect to SIAC services at designated access points, replacing point-to-point circuitry with a highly redundant infrastructure that provides distributed pathways, independent of other telecommunication circuits and conduits.

FNX Limited (FNX), a provider of technology solutions to the financial-services industry, announced that it had recently delivered the latest release of its flagship Sierra Solution to Cargill Investor Services (CIS) in Chicago. New benefits focus on the inclusion of features that improve batch-process handling, enhance the existing scheduler functionality, and increase significantly Sierra's performance capabilities.

Trace Datawise Financial Ltd, a subsidiary of technology and services group Trace Group Plc, announced that Standard Life Investments and Delaware International are the latest financial institutions to buy Trace Datawise Financial's EasyISO15022 (EasyISO) solution for integration to the Swift network. In order to improve straight-through processing (STP), ISO 15022 becomes mandatory for the transmission of securities messages on the network on Nov. 16, 2002. Standard Life Investments (an investment-management house) and Delaware International (a U.S. owned international institutional-investment-management company) are testing this month to ensure smooth connectivity to the new standard.