CitiFX saw record levels of activity on Thursday, 06JUN2013 in terms of the number of trades processed, surpassing the previous record set on 23MAY2013. The average daily number of tickets processed in June is 20% higher than in May. In annualized terms, 60% more tickets are going through the system than a year ago. Turnover in JPY accounted for 43% of the tickets generated on 06JUN2013

“While the focus tends to be on front-end efficiency, it has to be remembered that if the back end of the deal chain cannot cope with the number of deals that have been transacted, then the whole system will grind to a halt
,” said Stuart Riley, Global Head of IT for CitiFX

“The number of tickets generated is at levels that were almost unimaginable just two years ago. We’ve had to plan very carefully and ensure that our systems are scalable to cope with these demands. That is a serious challenge for most institutions,” he added.

It may be recalled here that Citi implemented Quantum FX last year. Quantum FX is Foreign Exchange Back Office system using in-memory data processing spread across parallel servers built using open source Java components running on Linux and on a high performance framework reused from equities front office.

Quantum FX got the following award and recognition in Banking Technology Awards 2012 in Dec 2012. It was published in Banking Technology magazine Jan/Feb 2013 issue.
1. Citi won in The Judged category Best use of Technology in Investment Banking
2. Polaris Financial Technology was Highly Commended in the The Readers Choice Category Best Post Trade Processing Product or Service

CitiFX Wire, the bank’s in-house news and information service, also enjoyed a record day in terms of articles read. “We have a constant flow of information being published in real time from our staff around the world. Clients are increasingly reading this to help with their trading decisions, and also to find out why the markets are moving. There is a clear correlation between market activity and the number of hits we see on CitiFX Wire content,” said Riley.