The Royal Bank of Scotland has updated the software
underpinning its foreign exchange trading
service.
The bank's FXstream foreign exchange portal, one of the 10 largest
global foreign exchange banks by average daily turnover, uses
software from Caplin Systems to stream currency prices to traders
over the internet.
Traders access the live pricing information on more than 60
currencies though an internet browser.
The Caplin Liberator software runs on Sun Microsystems' Solaris
operating system. Each Liberator server can deliver 1.25 million
user updates a second and can serve more than 10,000 concurrent
users.
Martin Spurr, head of e-ventures at RBS, said the bank needed to
upgrade its technology through the investment, thought to be worth
£500,000, because the previous system it used to exchange trading
information could not cope with rising demand.
"We first launched FXstream in 2003, offering live pricing and
trade entry to our clients on a 24-hour basis," Spurr said.
"As market demand increased, it became necessary to upgrade the
technology that supported the real-time element of the portal to
ensure it would continue to provide the level of service our
clients expect."
Another problem with the previous system was that some users could
not see currency prices because problems with firewalls and servers
meant that pricing information was sometimes delayed.