UNX LLC, a leading provider of innovative trading technology solutions, has upgraded its Catalyst® Execution Management System (EMS), an open-architecture electronic trading solution.
Catalyst now supports international equity trading in major European markets as well as Canada, Brazil and Mexico. Other platform enhancements include advanced real-time benchmarking capabilities and enhanced trade management and OMS functionality.
Ruth Colagiuri, Head of Global Product Management for UNX, comments that "Extending Catalyst to support international markets represents an important milestone as we rapidly grow the core EMS capabilities across regions and asset classes in response to client demand."
UNX also just released Version 4.0 of its Software Development Kit (SDK), which now includes interfaces to support multi-currency, global market data and order handling.
Available to clients, broker-dealers, exchanges and third-party application vendors to develop applications or add-ins for use in Catalyst, the UNX SDK includes multiple open APIs that provide access to thousands of callable functions and support a broad range of programming languages. Users can quickly add functionality, update their offerings and integrate applications without having to involve the UNX development staff and incur additional development costs.
Recent additions to the suite of available applications include pre-trade analytics from Goldman Sachs and QSG's transaction cost analysis product.
Colagiuri further comments, "The SDK empowers market participants to deliver proprietary content and value-added products directly to their clients, leveraging the broker-neutral Catalyst Portal as a distribution channel. The result is a new paradigm that extends beyond just an EMS to create a community of participants who can access and contribute solutions according to their business models and trading needs."
"We're seeing an increased demand for pre-trade analytics, and UNX's SDK allowed us to develop and deploy our analytics to select Goldman Sachs clients using Catalyst in record time," said Rishi Nangalia, Managing Director and Head of Business Development, Goldmanldman Sachs Electronic Trading. "We plan to use the SDK to build and integrate future value-added products and services into Catalyst."
Both Catalyst and the UNX SDK were built on open, modular architecture using Microsoft .NET technology—enabling clients to integrate or build exactly what they need at their discretion, based on their own unique requirements. UNX is recognized by Microsoft as a pioneer of .NET technology for the institutional trading community, and was showcased in a 2010 Microsoft Case Study for its use of .NET and WPF technology to create its next-generation EMS.
"Microsoft is proud that UNX has chosen to champion .NET as the technology core for their groundbreaking Catalyst EMS and Portal," comments Joe Shirey, Director of Customer Innovation at Microsoft. "We're excited to continue our mutual collaboration in delivering meaningful, next-generation trading technology with the performance, reliability and flexibility that customers require to adapt to changing market conditions and structures quickly," he adds.