The study, conducted among senior dealing room professionals at 35 top-flight financial institutions in Europe, the US and South East Asia, found that firms have yet to implement fully converged VoIP trading environments, where voice and data are carried on the same network. Those that have dabbled with VoIP have typically implemented technology that transmits voice traffic separately over a dedicated Ethernet LAN.

But with more robust technology becoming available, fifty four percent of trading organisations say they will implement fully converged VoIP on the dealing floor in the next three years. The main business requirements driving this change in attitude include contingency planning (BCP), operational efficiency, compliance with industry regulations and cost effective provision of services to remote users.

Report author Elton Cane comments: "Today’s robust VoIP technology overcomes the issues of reliability and latency associated with early experiences of this technology. By taking a fully converged approach to VoIP, organisations will be able to realise benefits such as IP re-routing for business continuity purposes."

VoIP technology will play a key part in enabling organisations to re-route calls across distributed systems, says Cane, as well as delivering flexible and cost effective support for remote/at home users.

Despite the potential, many firms are treading carefully nonetheless, preferring a phased approach to implementation rather than a big bang.

Rod MacDonald, managing director, BT Trading Systems, global financial services comments: "BT recognises the importance of allowing firms to migrate gradually, and interoperate with their existing PBX and TDM voice networks while also ensuring that they are ready to benefit from a fully converged IP environment at the time of their choosing. We are already actively working with a number of trading organisations to achieve this."

A copy of the complete Finextra survey is available for download: IP and BCP readiness in the trading organisation