WestLB eTrader

Eurobase provided WestLB with a connection to 360T via the Siena Gateway and an upgrade to its web-based FX/MM trading solution, Siena eTrader. This enabled the bank to implement a single platform servicing both its 360T customers and its single bank platform customers, which is highly integrated into the bank's infrastructure and which provides the foundation on which to expand internet trading opportunities in the future.

Background

WestLB AG is a European commercial bank with firm roots in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany´s largest federal state. It is the central institution for the savings banks in North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg, and as an internationally operating commercial bank it acts as their link to the global financial markets. Working in close partnership with the savings banks, WestLB offers the full range of products and services of a universal bank, focusing on lending, structured finance, capital market business, asset management, transaction services and real estate finance.

Back in 2004, WestLB replaced its legacy trading application with the Siena eTrader solution from Eurobase, a browser based single bank platform for FX & MM, to service its saving banks and customers.

Siena eTrader delivered significant cost reductions, tailor-made business functionality for the savings banks, better performance and improved reliability. It was the foundation for further Eurobase Siena enhancements. After the deployment of Siena eTrader, Eurobase introduced the Siena Gateway that provided connectivity to various ECNs including 360T.

Objectives

WestLB made the decision in 2009 to upgrade the existing Siena eTrader environment, implement the Siena Gateway and thereby replace another system used for auto trading on eFX markets.

The objectives of this decision were:

To deliver a single platform servicing both its 360T customers and single bank platform customers.
To reduce hardware and support costs.
To reduce risk through better integration of internet trading with the bank’s global limits system.
To provide a foundation on which to expand internet trading opportunities in the future.

These objectives had to be met without adversely affecting existing customer services.

Solution

The agreed solution was to deliver a single installation of the Siena software to meet the bank’s multi-bank (initially 360T) and single bank platform requirements.
The project was to be delivered in two phases:

Phase 1: Deliver the Siena Gateway (with a 360T adaptor) and Siena eTrader2 in order for the bank to deploy the solution, initially for 360T trading only.
Phase 2: Migrate customers from the previous Siena eTrader version to the latest deployed solution.

Result

The bank completed Phase 1, deploying the Siena Gateway for 360T trading, in 2009.
Phase 2, the deployment of the upgrade of Siena eTrader, was completed in April 2010.
Between April and October 2010 the Bank ran the two versions of Siena eTrader in parallel and undertook the one by one automated migration of 100+ Savings Banks and 1000+ Customers to the latest version of the Siena eTrader product.

Conclusion

The Bank has confirmed that it met all of the objectives that it set out to achieve and is particularly pleased that a foundation on which to expand internet trading opportunities in the future has been implemented.

The Siena real-time auto-quoting platform is highly integrated into the bank's infrastructure with its interfaces to the pricing engine (Reuters RFA) and deal export (FpML over MQ) for position keeping and processing within the back office.

Also the bank is noting positive feedback from its saving banks customers because of further improvements provided with the deployment of the new eTrader front-end.

Siena eTrader gives us the opportunity to provide a web-based eTrading solution to our Saving Banks. It offers us the flexibility for extending eTrading market connectivity and a high grade of integration into our existing banking infrastructure.

Matthias Schlier, Project Manager e-Trading IT at WestLB