Last week, the LSE launched an online competition, with £100,000 of prize money from sponsors Barclays Stockbrokers, to find Britain’s best investor. IFS has developed technology that enables the LSE to support the online environment for the competition, in which contestants attempt to pick the best performing shares on the LSE.

David Joyce, business head – corporate website of the London Stock Exchange, comments: "We chose IFS because it was able to tailor its technology to the specific needs of this competition. The final result is a user-friendly online portal with equities market data that helps demystify the workings of the stock market and encourage increased participation in investment. We hope InvestaQUEST will prove to be a great success and will be repeated in future years."

IFS has combined watch list, portfolio and corporate action back office components with a bespoke front end application, which will interface with the LSE's proprietary LMIL equities data feed. The application houses each user's portfolio of stocks and tracks performance and transactions. The value of each portfolio is calculated daily in order to track overall performance.

The technology is based on IFS's Quaser framework, which can be adapted for a variety of applications. By creating an online universe of stocks, exchanges can simulate portfolio management techniques for training or promotional purposes.

Sabine Toulson, managing director of IFS, comments: "We're delighted to be the technical development partner selected by the LSE. We see InvestaQUEST as an exciting new application of our established derivatives trading simulator technology. The technology can be applied to the equities, derivatives or treasury markets to allow financial institutions to implement training tailored to their specific requirements."

InvestaQUEST was launched on 17 January by the LSE. £100,000 prize money is on offer to the investors who pick the best performing shares on the LSE over the period of the competition. Entrants across the country will compete in regional heats, with the top ten investors from each region going forward to the national final and the chance to win a £40,000 grand prize.

In addition to the LSE, financial institutions such as Euronext.Liffe, Chicago Board of Trade and FTSE International rely on IFS's Quaser software.