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For the past two plus years, UBS has been busy designing and building their next generation SDP, called Neo (microsite here). We understand the platform, due for release early this year, was designed using Adobe Flex as the front-end technology.

HTML5 re-write?

The platform has yet to been released, yet there is much talk in the market that UBS may be re-implementing the front-end in HTML5, rather than releasing the platform as originally planned in Flex. This would make sense as HTML5 performance, development tools and adoption have come a long way since Neo was first commissioned.

If confirmed this would support the findings of recent research by Caplin Systems (shortly to be published), which found that banks considering new SDP projects were more likely use HTML5 than any other front-end technology.

Caplin’s white paper 2012: The Year of HTML5 on this topic is available now, with no delays!

By way of background:

The platform was we believe named after Neo, the hero in the Matrix film trilogy. This is no co-incidence as Neo was designed by the same person responsible for Morgan Stanley’s hugely expensive and ambitious Flex based Single Dealer Platform – called Morgan Stanley Matrix.

Late last year UBS investment bank chief Carsten Kengeter announced at an investor day presentation, the pending launch of UBS Neo:

The bank’s e-trading and analytics platform which aims to unite 94 existing client systems into one. UBS Neo will function as a unified distribution and execution platform, Kengeter said, bringing together pricing, client information, commentary and trading ideas across fixed income, currencies and commodities, equities, delta, research and prime services.

He added: “[The platform] will be live on clients’ desks early next year and will revolutionise and scale our interaction with clients, and add significant bottom line value to our securities business.” The bank’s FX franchise accounts for a very low proportion of its risk-weighted assets, Kengeter said, but contributes a third of macro revenues within FICC.

Investor presentation available here.

We would welcome comments from people closer to the project to confirm whether Neo is actually being re-written in HTML5, and if so the primary reason for the change.

More on the Matrix Blue pill or Red pill here

Filed under: HTML5, Paul Blank, Single-Dealer Platforms, Technology Trends, Web trading technology |