Securities technology: ESI to Offer Trade-Order Management Software for

ESI Securities Co., a major provider of brokerage services to trust banks, is ready to introduce a new automated trade management system next week.

Officials at New York-based ESI said the Microsoft Windows-based software, called TeamTrader, will allow trust department to consolidate trade order management activities on a single computer system.

TeamTrader - which is set to be unveiled next week at the American Bankers Association's National Trust and Private Banking Conference in San Francisco - can be integrated with a bank's portfolio management system to help traders better manage their activities with multiple brokers, ESI officials said.

Jeanne Murtaugh, vice chairman of ESI, said TeamTrader expands upon the firm's existing trade management software by allowing trusts to route trade orders electronically to multiple brokers, not just ESI.

"What we're offering with this new generation of technology is the ability to have a more functionally rich workstation for the trading room," said Ms. Murtaugh. "Some of the functionality that we designed (in previous trade order management systems) was exclusive and proprietary to working only with ESI."

ESI officials said TeamTrader can electronically route trades to any broker that accepts orders in a standard message format, known as FIX. Ms. Murtaugh said a number of Wall Street players - most notably Fidelity Investments and State Street Bank - have adopted the FIX standard for receiving trade orders electronically.

ESI, a pioneer in fully automated trading systems, is firmly entrenched in the market, Ms. Murtaugh said, so it doesn't expect to suffer any ill effects from releasing TeamTrader as a more open system. Ultimately, the move will help banks streamline their trust operations, whether or not they currently trade with ESI, she said.

"Providing clients with the greatest degree of efficiency, control, and choice by combining cutting-edge technology and trading expertise is central to our corporate philosophy," Ms. Murtaugh noted. "That is why we are taking an unbundled approach to the marketing of this product."

ESI officials said TeamTrader is in the final stages of testing at a client site, and should be generally available for installation by March.

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