Facilita launches major new initiative to help financial institutions address the challenges of Market Data Latency and MiFID

•    Announces portfolio of specialist testing services to help organisations deliver best execution and verify their MiFID-readiness

•    Helps set-up new JWG-IT Special Interest Group to provide invaluable MiFID testing resource


Manchester – 5 December, 2006 - Facilita, leading UK developer of IT performance and load testing tools and solutions, has launched a major new testing initiative to support financial institutions as they work to optimise their ability to deliver best execution on every trade. Facilita will offer an expanding portfolio of integrated testing services – ranging across key systems elements such as processors, I/O, disk arrays, networks, telecoms, database applications and trading systems – to provide organisations with a clear view of exactly how their automated solutions are performing, the level of market data latency being achieved, and a clear indication of the best execution levels that can be achieved before different system components start to degrade performance.

By delivering an end-to-end testing approach, Facilita can help financial institutions - across the entire securities lifecycle and value chain - prepare their internal systems to offer the highest market data latency performance in readiness for new EU regulatory change, such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), which becomes law on 1st November 2007.

“MiFID has provided a catalyst for a wide variety of financial institutions such as portfolio managers, corporate finance firms, futures and options firms, dealers,
stockbrokers, commodities firms as well as retail banks with trading operations, to really think about their systems performance and how they can succeed in a market increasingly dominated by automated trading systems,” commented Facilita’s Managing Director, Peter Greenwood. “At Facilita we’ve always known that effective performance engineering is never about optimising the performance of single components, you’ve got to test and monitor the end-to-end solution if you’re going to get anywhere near the latency figures needed to demonstrate best execution.

“With MiFID particularly, organisations trading across Europe are going to find that optimising systems for best execution isn’t just a differentiator, it’s now a ‘must-have’ in a market where every millisecond taken off their market data latency translates into increased bottom line performance,” he added. “That’s why Facilita has played such an active role in the foundation of JWG-IT’s Financial Services Testing Group which we believe will prove to be an invaluable testing resource for organisations needing to be certain that they can deliver the best execution that MiFID requires.”

To support its MiFID initiative, Facilita will integrate a range of different performance management and testing solutions to help assess the overall data latency of systems from individual components right through to overall systems. “Just because your system is equipped with latest quad-core microprocessors doesn’t guarantee that you can deliver best execution,” added Peter Greenwood. “We’ll be helping organisations to test and monitor the performance of their entire solution, from individual processors, through data arrays and I/O, to networking, telecoms, database performance and trading systems.”

About the Financial Services Testing Group:
The Financial Services Testing Group (FSTG) is a JWG-IT Special Interest Group formed by a consortium of testing organisations who can deliver the appropriate tools and services needed to address the complex testing challenges such as MiFID and other regulatory change in the banking and financial services sectors. FSTG’s founder members are Facilita, Testing Circle, T-Plan and SDLC Solutions.

The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) forms part of the EU’s vision to create an integrated financial services market across Europe. It is intended to open up the European financial instruments trading market from the investor’s viewpoint, while increasing the ease and reducing the cost of trading. It is expected that MiFID will lead to larger trading volumes, increased ease in the movement of capital and result in higher net returns for investors. The deadline for MiFID compliance is 1st November, 2007.