Gartmore Investment Management and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Securities are the first firms to use the SwiftNet FIX messaging service in live production.
The SwiftNet FIX service provides firms with access to multiple trading partners through a single FIX connection, eliminating the need to maintain multiple network and application-level connections.
DrKW and Gartmore originally signed up to Swift's pilot programme, moving on to become members of its early adopter programme. The programme was launched on 11 December 2002 and is expected to continue to the end of 2003.
The inter-bank network is targeting 100 firms to join the early adopter phase of its FIX programme. Participating firms will provide input into the development of features and functionality and benefit from pricing incentives.
Gartmore says the service allows it to eliminate the use of facsimile transmissions when sending allocations.
Chris Sims, head of development at the firm, says: "It will potentially allow us to use one link for the whole securities transaction lifecycle from trade order routing to settlement."
Andrew Bowley, director, client connectivity & order management, DrKW, and a member of the FIX Protocol European Steering Committee says implementation of this link will enable his firm to increase the speed of processing and reporting for Gartmore.
The initiation of the early adopter programme coincides with the release of version 4.1 of the new IP-based network SwiftNet. This latest release enables the use of SwiftNet FileAct for market infrastructures as well as many-to-many transfers. As part of this, Swift has released three interface products that enable off-the-shelf integration and use of FileAct.