Dublin's International Financial Systems (IFS), has acquired UK Internet trading solutions developer Dene International in a deal worth $21 million.
Dene's flagship product, Gate (Global Automated Trading Engine), provides automated foreign exchange trading and is currently being used by Barclays Bank, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan, Natwest and Allied Irish Banks.
"Dene's Gate technology will allow IFS to fast track the migration of our MarginMan collateralised trading application to the Internet and to offer a superior range of automated Internet trading solutions via an ASP model to our existing clients and to the global FX market in general," says Ken Coldrick, managing director, IFS.
The merging of Dene's Gate and IFS' MarginMan technologies within an ASP (Application Service Provider) environment will provide banks of all sizes with greater access to FX liquidity, says Coldrick, and help to improve customer services while lowering operational costs.
IFS says it will undertake a recruitment campaign over the next six months as part of an aggression expansion plan with the aim of increasing its sales, research and development teams.