BankAmerica Corp. officials said last week they have signed a contract to install new digital telephone systems to be used by the bank's 140 foreign exchange and fixed-income-securities traders.
The contract was "a seven-figure deal," according to officials of the vendor, IPC Information Systems Inc., New York.
The phone systems, known in Wall Street parlance as "turrets," give traders one-button access to clients and counterparties, as well as offering various teleconferencing and voice-broadcast capabilities.
The San Francisco-based bank will install IPC's Tradenet MX turrets in its foreign exchange and bond trading rooms, replacing a previous generation of IPC equipment installed 10 years ago, officials said.
"IPC not only offers a quality product but also has stepped up to the plate very responsively to accommodate our requirements as we move to an all-digital world," said Rich Harmel, vice president of trading and distribution technology at BankAmerica.
More and more money-center banks and investment firms, including Chase Manhattan Corp. and Goldman, Sachs & Co., have spent tens of millions of dollars over the past 18 months revamping their trading rooms, replacing traders' analog telephone systems with newer digital technology.
Compared to analog systems, these computerized communications consoles offer more telephone lines per trader and allow users to flexibly reconfigure their turrets for a particular short-term need - such as a foreign exchange trader adding more direct links to Japanese banks as clients' demand for yen picks up.
IPC officials said the digital turret also offers a smaller "footprint," which translates into more room on a trader's desk for computers screens to monitor and analyze markets.
"It is very gratifying to be able to extend our long-standing relationship with BankAmerica even further and to give (their) traders the most advanced tools," said Greg Langford, vice president of worldwide marketing at IPC.
