Reuters has established a new software support centre in Bangkok, replacing multiple similar facilities in international financial centres worldwide.
The new unit will take over responsibility for the day-to-day support of a broad range of real-time financial applications for market data display, order-routing, transactional systems, market information servers and multi-language news processors. Such applications are currently maintained and developed in various centres including London, New York, and Tokyo.
Reuters says it expects to achieve improved quality control by consolidating expertise on process, support and testing in one centre and also to reduce costs.
The new unit will start operations in the fourth quarter of 2001 with a small team of software developers from Reuters existing operations in Thailand. It is expected to grow over a three-year period to around 200 employees, the vast majority of which will be Thai nationals.
Mike Sayers, Reuters chief technology officer, says: "We’re making a substantial investment in a technology base in Thailand because we’ve been impressed with the ability and willingness of Thai developers to take on complex software applications in a relatively short timeframe. This new facility will aim to be a best-in-class centre focused on the provision of high quality support and enhancement of our international range of financial software products."