BT and Flexenet today announced a new partnership to give customers more choice in how they to move to cloud-based trading floor communications. BT will now offer customers Flexenet Private Wires connectivity fully integrated with its BT Trading unified communications and collaboration (UCC) platform. This will help deliver secure, compliant, high-performance real-time trading for customers globally.

BT Trading is engineered specifically for the global capital markets and can be integrated with leading unified communications systems from Microsoft and Cisco and choice of private wire services. As well as use on physical trading floors, it can be accessed by traders remotely. It includes a powerful suite of applications and devices and can be hosted by customers in their own data centres, by BT or in the public cloud.

Flexenet Private Wires offers secure private voice communication links between traders on the trading floors of investment banks, brokers, and hedge funds across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. By directly integrating it with BT Trading, the partners have created a comprehensive unified communications solution, irrespective of customers’ current voice technology, managed seamlessly as a single package.

“Trading firms globally are reaching a point where the move to cloud-based platforms is irresistible,” said Phil Swindle, CEO, Radianz and Trading & Command, Business, BT. “Obsolescence of legacy systems combined with the compelling benefits of the cloud, such as scalability, flexibility and ease of adopting new technologies, are driving change. The combination of BT Trading with Flexenet Private Wires reassures customers they can support existing services as they transform to new technologies.”

Chris Rose, CEO, Flexenet, said: “Interoperability between SIP and TDM in the delivery of private wires is essential as we work through this global technology transition to cloud. Customers will have a mix of users across each connectivity model so it’s important they have a solution that can address both. Our partnership with BT offers a global, comprehensive solution for customers’ trading needs and equips them perfectly for the cloud transition.”