Fees Direct enables users in the front, middle and back office to track commission changes, validate and reconcile exchange fees, create quotes, evaluate profit and loss on commission earnings, and archive historical client commission schedules.

Bob Sylverne, CEO of the Merlin Division commented: "Built using Merlin technology, we’ve constructed Fees Direct after a sustained dialogue with the industry to fully understand the issues it faces with regards to exchange fees and tracking the full costs of doing a trade. Many companies pay lip service to industry involvement, but we actually did it – we wanted to ensure that we fully understood the requirements before writing a single line of code. The results of this approach are apparent by the overwhelmingly positive response we have received to product demonstrations.

"The cost of errors – errors in exchange fees used, or errors in the calculation of the commission to charge customers – can be very high. Fees Direct aims to take the hassle out of this area, allowing firms to concentrate on their business.

"Many firms still use spreadsheets to manage their fees and commissions. Rolfe & Nolan believes that spreadsheets’ days are numbered as pressure builds from both regulatory initiatives like the EU’s MiFID, and auditors for a more sophisticated and genuinely transparent solution where best practice can be checked and historical schedules can be examined. Accordingly, Fees Direct is breaking new ground in the industry as it introduces functional STP to the fee and commission process."