Garban Intercapital (ICAP)

For highly commoditised products such as US Treasuries, Garban Intercapital’s proprietary trading system — ETC (Electronic Trading Community) platform — works in tandem with their client’s trading interface. This combination provides the foundation for a ‘hybrid’ voice-electronic trading operation. ICAP’s customers have embraced the concept as the solution to combining voice liquidity and electronic broking.

Connecting various sources of liquidity is central to ICAP’s broking division, Garban-Intercapital. Thousands of voice and data lines connecting the world’s largest banks and dealers, together with a proprietary fault tolerant network of Cisco© Routers and Sun© Servers for its electronic trading clients, helps to deliver liquidity around the globe. In addition, the network has been designed to link with all major market data vendors and protocols.

Texunatech has been engaged to carry out performance testing and review of ICAP’s new Foreign Exchange trading system. Using Rational Robot and Rational Test Manager, Texunatech has assessed the system and provided ICAP with an independent review of it. Crucial elements of the test ensured the system can withstand maximum loads, users and trading volumes, and identified potential weaknesses so ICAP and the original developers were able to make improvements as required. Rigorous testing proved to be essential prior to the introduction of a mission-critical financial system such as this.