The BondsInAsia platform is being established as a unified gateway for researching, analysing, and trading corporate and government bonds throughout Asia. The online marketplace will aim to provide pre-trade analysis, credit assessments, trade execution, and middle- and back-office integration.

As general technology contractor for BondsInAsia, Bridge eMarkets is responsible for technical oversight for the project and will provide network and hosting services for the site, while also delivering ongoing customer service and operational support.

Bridge has contracted Crosslinks to implement its Links framework, including components to provide real-time price distribution through the public Internet and counter-party relationship management. Crosslinks was founded in 1998 by Dirk Manelski, former senior architect of electronic commerce at AT&T Capital and the head of broadcast systems development for Bloomberg.

"The Crosslinks team has already built and understands global trading platforms and can rapidly deliver this platform," notes David Rutter, president of Bridge eMarkets. "Our partners and their customers require a scalable, real-time system that handles the entire transaction lifecycle. Crosslinks has proven its ability to deliver complete, integrated solutions for the financial services industry."

BondsInAsia expects to launch trading in the first quarter of 2001, and the initial platform will cover the Hong Kong and Singapore domestic markets and G3 currency Asian credit markets before expanding into South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and India.