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EGAR To Please
With offices in New York and Moscow, EGAR Technology is planning to capture a niche market of tailor-made technological derivative solutions for clients. EGAR has currently developed FOCUS, a trading and risk management system, which was their first product launched. FOCUS is a multi-product, front-to-back system supporting all markets such as foreign exchange, fixed income, metals, commodities, and interest rates. It also has a weather and emissions derivative support module. EGAR also recently launched Equity Trading System (ETS), which offers real-time equity options trading and risk management solutions. Ravi Jain, ceo at EGAR, attributes the need for ETS to the high demand for equity options products, especially as there is a lack of such systems in the market. ETS has been designed as a platform that can be tailor-made to suit client's particular needs. As with all of EGAR's other products, it has been built as a basic platform that can act as a stand-alone product or as an addition to a client's existing system. "Every client is different and has individual customisation needs. Therefore, we wanted to start a platform that provides all of the common features that listed equity options traders would need, in addition to sub-systems, which they could attach either to ETS, or to their own existing platforms to enhance their needs," explains Jain. The additional sub-systems that have been built to enhance ETS include a volatility management system, and there are plans to launch several equity option analytical tools over the next six months. These include a dispersion analysis tool, a correlation analysis tool and a volatility correlation tool. Tailor-made Increasing EGAR's global presence is one of the firm's priorities, and its long-term plans are to develop EGAR into a cross-product financial technology company that provides a suite of modular products to enhance client-specific solutions. Jain is confident that there is more to the industry than simply supplying off-the-shelf products: "We are trying to attack both sides of the problem by designing modular tools for both trading and risk management as well as decision support tools. The idea is to build tools that can be run in conjunction with trading systems or as stand alone products - this is not just about closed systems, but about building a set of very compelling and sophisticated up-to-date technological solutions that we can then tailor to fit clients' needs." EGAR is also planning to launch a further range of derivative products within the next 12 months, with commodities, FX and equities as the prime areas for development, closely followed by fixed income and interest rate related products. Current products in the pipeline include a real-time FX margining system and a limit server, both of which are being built as modular systems. The firm also plans to relaunch FOCUS with new interfaces, new calculations and improved commodity derivative functionality. Although EGAR currently has a weak European presence, it plans to open an office in London to increase clients in this area. In addition to recruitment for the London office, there are also plans to recruit more sales and marketing staff for the New York office. The presence of an office in Moscow, however, is helping EGAR to take advantage of emerging European markets. Jain reports that the firm is experiencing a lot of interest form Russia, and particularly from banks that are seeking to expand and implement risk management systems: "KGHM in Poland, which is one of the largest metal producers in Poland, recently bought one of our systems for their metal derivative activities. Although the process is slow, we are seeing a lot of activity from Eastern Europe, and being in Moscow means we are acutely placed to take advantage of this growing market." |
© 2009 EGAR Technology Inc. All rights reserved. Designed by EGAR Technology Inc. Photographs by John Sann.  |