Vendors Expected to Shine in 2009

The financial market vendor space looks set to be one of 2009ís few growth sectors. According to Patrick Looney, CEO of MarketVendorJobs.Com, the specialist recruitment website for the financial technology and information vendor space, the past month has seen a 30% increase in the number of vacancies advertised on the site in such areas as exchange connectivity, market data, banking software, banking technology and trading software, with this trend looking set to continue.

Despite the global financial downturn and mass job losses in many sectors, ìa substantial number of vendors are actively recruiting,î says Patrick Looney, adding: ìwe have seen a significant increase in the number of jobs available over the last monthî. Looney explained further: ìexperienced candidates with an investment banking background have the option of transferring their skills to a number of vendor product areas, whilst still earning a decent livingî.

This sense of optimism is echoed by various other vendor specialists. Martin Cole, UK Managing Director of SIX Telekurs, the third largest provider of financial information in Europe, commented: ìin 2009 there will be a greater emphasis on providing improved levels of service, with more accurate and timely pricing modelsî. Adding: ìas tighter regulation will inevitably be imposed on the financial markets, the demand for more robust risk management, reporting and surveillance technologies, including quality data sources, will provide further opportunities for vendors to the financial marketsî.

Brendan Beith, European sales director of Interactive Data, a leading provider of financial market data, analytics and related services, said: We believe that a variety of factors, including the continued volatility of the financial markets and the heightened regulatory environment, will continue to drive demand in 2009 for a broad range of financial data, especially in the areas of valuation, reference data and low latency data. There is clearly a higher degree of cost awareness for our clients in the current environment. However, with risk management and compliance becoming growing priorities, we believe that clients will not compromise in their need for essential data. We also believe that quality is always important to our clients and we do not see that changing.

Last yearís merger of Thomson and Reuters, two of the top data feeds to the financial market, has provided opportunities for other vendors to generate new revenues. The merger has created a major rival to Bloomberg, the current leader in providing information, data and analytical software to the financial community. According to David Anderson, editor of Inside Market Data Reference, Thomson Reuters have 34 percent of the market for financial data with Bloomberg at 33 percent, leaving the remaining 33 percent of the market up for grabs.

This news coincides with the recent announcement that the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) has called on the country's banks to spend nearly 1 billion on new IT systems to speed up the process of paying out compensation to savers if they collapse.

The markets will recover at some stage, they always do. However, in the interim, redundant market participants need to keep abreast of any changes in the market if they are ever to secure a position similar to which they had before the current financial crisis. The continued volatility of the financial markets and the heightened regulatory environment will continue to provide opportunities to the vendor space. Taking these factors into consideration, the vendors to the financial markets look set to provide a ray of light in an otherwise dreary forecast for the year ahead.