icubic's latest offering enables traders, sales and customers in the global electronic securities markets to operate for the first time within a virtual marketplace. The only integrated single-dealer platform on the market, iMarket optimises the enhanced speed associated with today's Bank-to-Customer (B2C) market. HVB, Germany's second largest bank, will be the first financial institution to go live with iMarket from its Munich headquarters in spring 2005.

Thanks to iMarket, HVB can now benefit from significantly improved trading and cost efficiencies. iMarket's integral QuoteReflex system enables multi-asset class traders to automate price negotiation to maximise market opportunities while simultaneously retaining the flexibility and control over manual negotiations for superior risk management capabilities. The e-trading platform's inbuilt sales credit system and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool improves internal communication between sales and trading and enables banks to ensure the best customer service.

Bernd Brückner, Director eCommerce Global Markets, HVB, comments: "By bringing improved STP, reduced risk and cost efficiencies to the traditionally complex world of B2C electronic trading, iMarket enables us to further improve our customer service. The virtual marketplace within the product's flexible framework enables us to tailor our services to each client and make products available electronically faster than ever before."

Les Gosling, UK managing director and head of international sales, icubic, says: "iMarket provides banks with the ability to tier prices according to customer profiles and automate the usually time-critical Request for Quote (RFQ) process for transactions that meet the pre-defined criteria, allowing banks to minimise the burden of routine activities. It also improves workflow transparency for more complex trades by automatically generating an appropriate alert and intuitive pop-up for the negotiation process. The net result is a substantial saving to time and costs for all concerned."

Ralf Henke, CEO, icubic, says: "We are constantly looking for ways to optimise efficiencies, improve Straight-Through Processing and reduce operating costs for our growing customer base. Until now, with iQbonds, our product suite that enables traders to price, quote and trade in real-time, we have concentrated on the inter-dealer market. HVB’s selection of iMarket for its Munich headquarters is a welcomed endorsement of our new capabilities within the B2C arena."

iMarket, which provides users with comprehensive connectivity to Europe's financial markets, ECNs and market data providers, including Bloomberg and Reuters, has been designed with an easy-to-use customer interface and is programmed in Java to ensure its platform independence. It integrates seamlessly with existing infrastructure and systems, including iQbonds.