Orc Group AB (SSE: ORC), a leading provider of technology and services for the global financial industry, today announced Westpac Banking Corporation has deployed Orc Trading to support its options trading and warrants market making operations on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).
The order was booked in Q1, 2011, and the contract is based on Orc's licensing subscription model.
Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac) was founded in 1817 and was the first bank established in Australia. The Westpac Group provides financial and investment services to retail customers, multi-national corporate, institutional and government clients. Westpac's equity derivatives trading desk recently adopted Orc's technology to scale up their options trading and warrants market making business. The solution provides Westpac with non-membership DMA trading access to the ASX.
"Together with its rich functionality, Orc's solution has also enabled our team to adapt our proprietary pricing models for the pricing of our warrants and exchange traded options, which allows us to both efficiently make markets on the exchange and capture more trading opportunities," said Craig Keats, Executive Director, Head of Trading and Risk, Equities,
Westpac Banking Corporation. "Orc is well known in the Australian market for providing high performance market making solutions. We are really pleased to be in a position to leverage Orc's market leading technology and gain an edge in the markets."
"Providing solutions for warrant and ETO market makers is a core part of our offering, and the addition of Westpac to our client base is a testament to the performance of our solutions within this space," said Peter McPhee, VP, Sales APAC, Orc Group. "Orc's powerful trading technology combined with our DMA connectivity, provides exchange members and non members alike with a scalable solution that enables them to trade efficiently locally or globally."