New Zealand Stock Exchange Pioneers World-Leading Use of Wireless Technology

NZSE Teams up with HP, TANTAU and Computershare for Direct, Wireless Market Access for Trading

The New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZSE) today hosted the first direct, market access trades using wireless application protocol (WAP) to be initiated on the securities market in the Asia Pacific region. The trades were part of a global demonstration of a wireless securities trading capability developed by Computershare, Hewlett-Packard Company, the NZSE and TANTAU Software.

NZSE Deputy Chairman Simon Allen made the first live WAP trade on the New Zealand stock market from an Ericsson R320s mobile WAP phone.

The NZSE WAP application will allow clients to trade and transfer securities directly, without passing through a broker. According to NZSE Managing Director Bill Foster, brokers will still need to register their clients for wireless trades and set limits for the transactions. Once clients are registered, however, they can trade without broker assistance. Clients will connect to the NZSE WAP server through their ISPs using their WAP phones to make a trade -- often with same-day settlement.

Improved Access to Open up New Markets for Brokers

"This technology will improve our efficiency and facilitate competition by improving access and creating new markets," said Foster. "It will also expand their traditional client bases by attracting non-traditional investors. New Zealand brokers are recognized internationally for their efficiency, and our aim is to enhance this advantage.

"Lowering transaction costs and reducing risk are other drivers for our adoption of WAP technology. World leaders in applying technology to securities markets have joined in on this project, enabling us to turn this concept into a reality in under two months. We already have the confidence to demonstrate the application on our mission-critical live production system. Last year, we installed the Computershare trading system in record time -- six months from `sign to online' -- and under budget.

"The NZSE will continue to be a developer and user of this latest technology. We will be working toward mid-year to develop a fully operational version of this application."

Secure, Reliable, Wireless Platform

"Mission-critical mobile e-services, such as the wireless stock trading at NZSE, will soon be pervasive. Clearly stock trading and banking are among the most critical and demanding environments in business today. This application is an excellent demonstration of collaboration to deliver leading mobile e-services solutions based on mission-critical HP 9000 servers running HP-UX(1)," said Ruth Rosenberg, worldwide mobile banking program manager with HP.

The core of the prototype is robust, wireless Internet software provided by TANTAU's Wireless Internet Platform. This allows the secure transfer of data between a wireless device and NZSE's back-end applications and data sources. TANTAU's is the first m-commerce software platform to give businesses the ability to keep a direct link to the customer, as opposed to using a service provider's proprietary gateway or portal. It meets the very highest levels of availability, scalability, data integrity and security.

"The NZSE application is another implementation of leading-edge mobile solutions for the financial-services market," said Rosenberg.

Computershare developed the NZSE electronic trading system, enabling connectivity by mobile phone and the straight-through processing that makes the NZSE WAP system unique.

Computershare's director of Strategic Business Development, Paul Conn, said, "The NZSE access and trading initiative is at the leading edge of WAP deployment. Computershare will be closely monitoring market response. We are considering WAP for a broad range of products and services, including order routing and exchange trading. It also could provide another channel to access our 41 million shareholder account global registry."


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