London, 24th April 2014
Colt, the leading information delivery platform, has connected the offices of clearing houses EuroCCP and European Multilateral Clearing Facility (EMCF) as they combine to form Europe’s largest pan-European clearing house EuroCCP NV. As a long term trusted provider of network services to EuroCCP, Colt was ideally positioned to connect these two renowned clearing houses to ensure business as usual when regulators gave the go ahead for this high profile transaction.
The Dutch clearing house EMCF and their British competitor EuroCCP announced their plans to combine in March 2013. Once the activity was approved by the Office of Fair Trading in October, they wanted to move quickly to connect the Amsterdam and London offices ahead of the transaction being completed in January 2014. As an established provider for EuroCCP, Colt had previously delivered services to a tight deadline when industry regulations meant that EMCF needed a separate infrastructure from its parent bank in 2009. Faced with this new challenge, EuroCCP turned to Colt to swiftly implement its Optimum Managed Networking services ahead of the important business deadline.
“Colt understands that speed is essential in our business. They’ve always been very efficient and effective in creating a solution tailored to our growing needs and this was demonstrated once more with its agility and flexibility to implement the London connection. It took just one meeting with our Colt account manager for Colt to design an offering in line with our needs,” explains EuroCCP IT Manager, Erik Nieuwenhuis.
EuroCCP manages more than six million European transactions each day, clearing stocks across 19 markets, including Bats Europe, Stockholm-based Burgundy and London Stock Exchange Group Plc (LSE)’s Turquoise. EuroCCP offers automated clearing-house services that reduce risk and improve liquidity, meaning that its ICT infrastructure is at the core of the business. Any loss of connectivity would impact EuroCCP’s ability to monitor its clearing activity, while delays in clearing trades could create unacceptable levels of risk to its clients and potentially the pan-European equities trading eco-system.
Colt has been providing managed networking services to EuroCCP since 2009. Colt’s managed IP VPN service; part of its Optimum Managed Networking services, now connects the Amsterdam headquarters with both the London office and four data centres for fast and secure internal communications and back-office operations. EuroCCP also uses Colt’s SWIFTNet service for secure connectivity to the SWIFT IP network, to ensure secure bank transaction messaging such as payment instructions.
“Our markets are very competitive,” says Albert-Jan Huizig, CIO, EuroCCP. “We need to keep an eye on our operational costs, even while demand for ICT services keeps growing. With Colt, I can concentrate on improving and extending our technical infrastructure because continuity is a given. We can move with our constantly expanding business requirements without worrying about stability.”
“With over 15 billion Euros worth of transactions passing through its systems every day, EuroCCP needs to be confident that their partners have the best combination of expertise, reach and enterprise-grade infrastructure so that they can focus on delivering a high quality, reliable and competitive service,” says Hugh Cumberland, Financial Services Solutions Manager, Colt. “That’s where Colt comes in. Whether the need has been driven by significant regulatory or business changes, we have been able to deliver the infrastructure that is fundamental to EuroCCP’s services.”
For the full case study, click here.
About EuroCCP
European Central Counterparty N.V. (EuroCCP) clears equities traded on stock exchanges, multilateral trading facilities and other securities trading platforms. After a trade has been executed, EuroCCP centrally manages counterparty risk for trading firms and reduces their post-trade costs through netting. It clears securities from 18 European markets and from the United States, depositary receipts as well as ETFs and Currency ETCs.
Headquartered in Amsterdam, EuroCCP was formed in 2013 following the combination of EuroCCP Limited and EMCF N.V. It is now the central counterparty for the largest number of equities trading platforms in Europe. ABN AMRO Clearing Bank, NASDAQ OMX, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and BATS Chi-X Europe are equal shareholders.
EuroCCP is regulated by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB, the Dutch central bank) and by Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM, the Dutch financial markets regulator).
About Colt
Colt is the information delivery platform, enabling its customers to deliver, share, process and store their vital business information. An established leader in delivering integrated computing and network services to major organisations, midsized businesses and wholesale customers worldwide. Colt operates in 22 European countries with a 46,000km European network and transatlantic network capacity. Colt has metropolitan area networks in 41 major European cities with direct fibre connections into 19,800 buildings and 20 carrier neutral Colt data centres.
In 2010, the Colt Data Centre Services business was launched to deliver innovative high quality data centre solutions at a Colt or customer site. Our innovative data centres are rapid to deploy, flexible and highly efficient.
In addition to its direct sales capability, Colt has four indirect channels to market; Agent, Franchise, Distributor and Wholesale which includes Carriers, Service Providers, VARs and Voice Resellers.
Colt is listed on the London Stock Exchange (COLT).
For more information, please contact:
Colt press contact
Colt, Paula Muezerie
DDI: +44(0)207 9471035
Mobile: +44 (0) 7932321768
Email: paula.muezerie@colt.net
Octopus, Katie Potts
DDI:+44 (0)8453 700 655
Mobile: +44 (0)7710 977 249
Email: Katie@weareoctopusgroup.net
EuroCCP press contact
Jeff Watt, Partner & Director
GreenTarget
DDI: +44 207 324 5482
Mobile: +44 7515 586503
Email: Jeff.watt@greentarget.co.uk
PR Archives: Latest, By Company, By Date