SIA SHOW: Moneyline Telerate Launches Global WebStation

Nine months after the acquisition of Telerate from Bridge Information Systems, the new owner, Moneyline Telerate, is strutting its stuff.

"Our strategy is to align with customers to give distribution to their content and their executable trading engines," says Jonathan Robson, chief executive officer of Moneyline Telerate. "To do that, you need a fully-robust and fully-deployed global-IP footprint and Bridge invested hundreds of millions of dollars in achieving exactly that," adds Robson.

At the SIA show (booth #2201), Moneyline Telerate will demonstrate Brokertec and TradeWeb - two leading fixed-income ECNs owned by dealer consortia that are distributing their prices as the benchmark pages over Telerate.

With a marketing theme of "Get Connected," Moneyline Telerate, a global provider of real-time information and transaction services, is promoting the idea of broker/dealers getting connected to their customers by using the global IP footprint of Telerate or through the Internet capability of Moneyline Telerate.

As an example of dealers distributing proprietary content over its network, Moneyline Telerate will demonstrate Salomon Smith Barney's YieldBook application, one of the leading fixed-income analytic packages. "It's an opportunity for Salomon Smith Barney to monetize their asset and to commercially make it available for distribution to customers as a service," comments Robson.

But the centerpiece of Moneyline Telerate's SIA strategy appears to be WebStation - a browser-based platform that provides real-time, streaming financial content with fully-customizable user applications. It provides access to the entire Telerate content set - 4.5 million instruments and 200 exchanges worldwide - as well as Tradeweb and BrokerTec, analytics and charting. Financial firns can also private label the product to promote their branding, says Robson. Though WebStation made its North American debut in April, MoneyLine Telerate is announcing the global launch at SIA of Webstation, which will come in six languages, including Greek and German in Europe and Japanese, Chinese and Korean in Asia. "The look and feel is going to be different from each region," explains Karyn Dobin, product manager. "If you log on in Europe, it will have a European flavor," says Dobin, who adds that right from the home page, "you can see the most relevant information from your region." Users also have the ability to create their own market-data worksheets and share them with anyone else. They can have a junior trader create the worksheets for a Treasury or mortgage desk and then all the other traders can copy them into their workstation, she says. Since Webstation is hosted by MoneyLine Telerate, "you can access it from home, from Europe and from Asia," says Dobin.

Though officials emphasize the low cost of Webstation, as compared to traditional desktop applications that require dedicated lines and maintenance, they decline to say what the price is.

"This does reduce our client's overall costs. We are sensitive to the overall economic situation," says Dobyn, who notes that if a client already has the Telerate feed or the Telerate workstaion you could add on Webstation for a minor cost."

Aimed at off-the-trading-floor users, the Web-based product is going to be used for mobile users, disaster recovery and the buy side.

"Another novel feature being shown at SIA is video over IP - a capability that MoneylineTelerate acquired from two businesses, VNCI and B2B Video. "Every point on the Telerate network can be video conferencable," says Robson, who notes that firms can use the capability to reach their own organization or to reach counter parties. If their analysts record video-based content they could distribute that to customers or conduct video conferences with customers.

Middleware is also on the docket. Moneyline Telerate is displaying Moneyline Telerate Trading Room System (MTTRS), a middleware-distribution platform it purchased to position it as a more cost-effective alternative to digital distribution platforms like Reuters, Tibco and other heavyweight applications, says Robson. Moneyline Telerate is also demoing MIS, a high-end database-management engine that helps with straight-through processing. Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio