GL Tr@der is intended for trading desks at brokerage houses and their clients.

Because the workstation is a 'thin client' and requires no software installation at the user's PC, IT implementation and support costs can be kept very low, especially for distributed populations such as the clients of an international broker. GL TRADE can host web servers and gateways to further simplify management of the technology.

GL Tr@der is based on the architecture and features of the existing thin-client option of OBMS (GL TRADE's specialist order management system for derivatives trading). The new product is thus built on a proven technology base, with several years of field experience and over 1,500 installed stations. It runs in a web browser, using Java applets downloaded at login.

The main client benefits of this product consist in providing a full-function professional workstation that is also very easy to set up and use, and which enables access to over 50 global derivatives markets via GL TRADE's unrivalled range of exchange gateways.

With this new product, GL TRADE aims in particular to facilitate for brokers the roll-out of trading solutions to their clients. A broker can get new clients trading with him within minutes at a GL Tr@der screen. This should help to expand further the use of electronic client-to-broker trading: the benefits of this mode of working relative to telephone trading are clear, in terms of speed, efficiency and avoidance of errors in transcription.

Michael Hughes, Front Office Derivatives Product Manager at GL TRADE, said: "This solution delivers real cost-effectiveness for large-scale deployments: it is easy to distribute, operate and support. The workstation will be especially valuable for current GL TRADE clients, as it can use the same gateways to exchanges and other central infrastructure that they have installed already."