Colt connects Europe’s largest pan-European cash equities clearing house

Colt 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 Connectivity 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.”