Record attendance levels at today's Dealing With Technology show in London has led to speculation about a potential recovery in IT spending among investment banking institutions.
By mid-afternoon, the one-day event had clocked up 646 financial institution delegates. Clare Walsh, DWT event organiser, comments: "This is the best-attended event so so far. We've always pulled in the treasury and trading systems people, but this year we're also seeing more interest from the business side."
The thirty-five exhibitors at the invitation-only event, which combines an exhibition with vendor-led presentations, reported a steady stream of foot traffic throughout the day. Research In Motion, provider of the popular Blackberry mobile data service, was particularly busy on its DWT debut outing. Other newcomers this year include Amhanta Solutions, an Irish start-up providing risk management software for FX and treasury trading, and Axiom, a provider of enterprise data management infrastructure solutions.
While Bloomberg enjoyed its first appearance at a DWT event on London soil, big questions were being asked of Reuters, the pre-eminent news and information supplier to the wholesale markets, and its non-appearance at the show.
Among the speakers, the biggest crowd-puller was John Best of the Information Provider User Group, who looked at the future of the market data industry after one of the most turbulent years in its history. Kevin Bland, head of embedded partner channel, at Citrix Systems also drew an audience of 100+ for a presentation on thin client computing in the dealing space.