IBS Journal September 2015
Wall Street backs Symphony to challenge Bloomberg with new IMS
Watch out Bloomberg. A new technology firm backed by Wall Street banks and fund managers launched an instant messaging service in August. Bloomberg currently leads in instant
communications with 320,000 financial sector workers around the world using its Instant Bloomberg platform. However, California-based Symphony
Communication Services wants to change all that. It also believes it can capitalise on Bloomberg’s past indiscretions. In May 2013, reporters at Bloomberg misused their privileged access to the com- pany’s global network of terminals to spy on users’ activities. It was Goldman Sachs executives who
worked out that reporters had been looking up users’ login and search details. Bloomberg said sorry, but the damage was done. From that, Symphony was born. In
autumn last year, Goldman merged its in-house messaging product with Sym- phony – and 14 other financial firms invested $70 million to get it going. These companies included Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Citigroup, Bank of America and JP Morgan.
Symphony, the brainchild of David
Gurle – who worked at Skype, Reuters and Microsoft – will have some work to do to topple Bloomberg. It will also have to see off Reuters’ EikonMessenger which has 240,000 users. Many other technology companies
have tried to displace Bloomberg from the top spot. But this is the first major chal- lenge from a start-up with strong backers and serious investment. Symphony’s messaging and workflow software uses a cloud-based/Software-as-
as-Service (SaaS) subscription. It can also use existing cloud-hosting technologies or stand alone. Since April, it has been testing a beta
version and says it will charge ‘larger’ clients $30 per user per month. ‘Smaller’ firms will get a cheaper option later this year. Bloomberg’s terminals are located at banks and financial regulators’ offices around the world. They offer instant access to almost all financial information. Users pay about $20,000 per year to rent each terminal. Antony Peyton
Britain’s oldest bank C Hoare launches mobile app
C Hoare & Co, Britain’s oldest bank, is launch- ing a mobile app as it enters the digital age. Alexander Hoare, a partner in the pri-
vate bank, revealed the news in a ‘summer letter’ (i.e. press release) to customers. He says the new app will ‘hopefully’ make an appearance next year. Hoare also says the bank may offer contactless cards before the year end. Along with a new COO, the bank is keen to ‘modernise 300 years of banking practices’. The bank, founded in 1672, saw its prof-
its dip slightly to £29.7million ($46.3 million) in the year to the end of March 2015. In an interesting conclusion to a press
release, Hoare notes: ‘In the book of Gen- esis, God promises not to flood the world
with waters again, and shortly afterwards He saw fit to confound the City of Babel as it was becoming too powerful. The Bible is entirely silent on the subject of the world being flooded with money printed by central banks.’ For its core banking system, it is a long-standing user of Financial Objects’ Activebank. Some banks, including C Hoare, chose to purchase the source code as Temenos bought Financial Objects and sunsetted its systems. In terms of wealth management, SS&C
Technologies and Simcorp list C Hoare as a user of their Hiportfolio and Simcorp Dimension systems, respectively. Antony Peyton
© IBS Intelligence 2015
C Hoare & Co.
www.ibsintelligence.com 25
ibs news
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