FFastFill is the leading SaaS Provider for trading and risk management serving the electronic trading community.

FFastFill's LME Electronic Access Sales Almost Triple in Two Years
By Perrine Faye - Deputy Chief Correspondent, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (+44(0)20 7929 6339)

London, 28 July 2009 - FFastFill’s sales of electronic access to the London Metal Exchange have almost tripled in two years and continues to grow, marketing director Patrick Thornton-Smith said in an interview.

FFastFill, which offers software and services to the global derivatives community, has been providing trading and risk management services to brokers trading on LME Select, the exchange's electronic dealing platform, for almost five years.

Its first customer was Dresdner Kleinwort before the "floodgates" opened in 2006, Thornton-Smith said.

FFastfill continues to lead in LME connectivity with a third of Category I and II members, including major brokers such as Mizuho, Newedge and Icap, using its services, he said.

"We now have 13 LME members, principally Cat II, using FFastFill's services to access the electronic platform, and two more are coming on board soon," he said. "Two years ago we had just five and last year nine."
Category II members can trade in the ring, the LME's open-outcry floor, while Category II members can only trade on Select and via the exchange's inter-office telephone market. Both can clear LME business.

"The technology required by LME users is very complex because of the LME prompt date structure and all the carries that are traded," Thornton-Smith said. "It is a unique way of trading."

About 60 percent of LME electronic trading volumes are currently booked via FFastfill, he estimated, a percentage the LME was unable to confirm.

"The plan is to get 100 percent," Thornton-Smith said.

FFastfill is one of 11 independent software vendors (ISVs) that have passed the conformance tests for order routing applications that allow direct connectivity to Select, Glen Chalkley, head of electronic market development at the LME, said. Order routing has since 2005 effectively given customers of LME firms almost total control of order execution though direct access to Select.

Trading Technologies and Patsystems are other significant ISVs, while there are also some 10 LME members - including Barclays, Sempra and Sucden - that have in-house platforms that allow their clients to trade directly on Select, Chalkley said.

The LME also offers a front-end platform to Cat I and II members only and cannot be passed on to clients. But the LME is considering a plan to facilitate access to Select by opening up the interface between LME users and Select, industry sources claimed.

FFastFill's services allow the atomisation of trade flow processes across a firm's front, middle and back offices. Applications encompass electronic order routing, matching, registration, clearing and risk management, providing brokers with savings in their administrative and IT departments.

Although FFastfill dominates front-office services to the LME, it is struggling to pierce though the back-office business, which is dominated by Cortex, because it takes up to a year to switch systems, Thornton-Smith said.

(Editing by Mark Shaw)