BT Creates Innovation In Financial Markets With Fintech Start-Ups Initiative

IRVING, Texas, July 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- BT today announced a new drive to accelerate innovation in global financial markets by bringing fintech start-ups onto the BT Radianz Cloud, the world's largest, secure networked financial community. The Radianz Cloud celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.

Fintech start-ups are a growing source of innovation in the financial markets industry.  But their small size creates challenges around market adoption, delivery and meeting the stringent contractual or compliance expectations of large financial institutions.

By hosting their solutions in the data centers, or on the growing range of cloud computing services connected to the Radianz Cloud, BT can provide fintech companies of all sizes with a ready-to-exploit market reach and commercial structure.  This, combined with BT's secure, scalable and managed operational infrastructure, can help them to grow quickly.

The Radianz Cloud links a community of thousands of brokers, institutions, exchanges and clearing and settlement houses. Through a single, resilient and secure network connection, members can reliably access thousands of applications and services from more than 400 providers critical to the every-day running of the global financial sector.  It's part of BT's 'cloud of cloud' vision to give firms greater control over how they use cloud-based applications and services.

The simple and proven BT Radianz Cloud model uses both managed hosting and connectivity services delivered separately or as a seamless bundle, with in-built security and resilience, delivering 100 per cent availability. 

One of the fintech start-ups already taking advantage of this route to market is Algomi, an award winning firm providing information matching solutions to optimize fixed income liquidity and aggregation. It wanted scale and flexibility to deliver services into major financial institutions.

BT worked with Algomi, using Radianz hosting space, cloud computing, connectivity and BT managed services, to help the fintech company meet the strict service level agreements and terms and conditions of its target customers. Now, Algomi can deliver services to a market of thousands of Radianz community members, including many of the world's leading financial service providers. 

Usman Khan, chief technology officer, Algomi, said: "Growing fintech firms face many barriers to entry when trying to introduce new solutions to large financial institutions.  Typically, these are big companies used to dealing with other big companies.  With the BT Radianz Cloud, Algomi gets the scale and reach it needs on tap, backed by BT's experience and capability of delivering solutions to large financial services organizations. It's an ideal platform for growth."

Tom Regent, president, global banking and financial markets, BT Global Services, said: "Since its launch 15 years ago, Radianz has been a driving force of innovation.  Today our community members are as keen as ever to find new ways to grow, address regulations and drive efficiencies.  Our new initiative will create a ready-made market place for fintech innovation bringing together smart start-ups and financial institutions. We will be making further investments in our cloud computing infrastructure to further support this strategy. 

"Fifteen years ago, Radianz launched with a strapline of 'One community. One connection. One focus'.  This message is as true today as it was then."

The Radianz Cloud was launched in 2000 and has evolved with the market and the changing needs of BT's clients. It established the world's largest financial services community and then grew to encompass managed hosting in more than 20 data centers globally, where significant clusters of capital markets organizations are present.   

BT's cloud of clouds approach combines organizations' needs for choice, flexibility and security with a services provider that knows how to make it work together.  Based on secure, managed connectivity spanning public and private clouds as well as third party cloud providers, BT's cloud of clouds approach helps organizations integrate and manage all their cloud services in a seamless manner, delivering end-to-end application performance and efficiency.

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About BT
BT's purpose is to use the power of communications to make a better world.  It is one of the world's leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband, TV and internet products and services; and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of five customer-facing lines of business: BT Global Services, BT Business, BT Consumer, BT Wholesale and Openreach.

For the year ended 31 March 2015, BT Group's reported revenue was £17,979m with reported profit before taxation of £2,645m.

British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. 

For more information, visit www.btplc.com.

SOURCE BT

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