Multibank portal 360T has added yet another asset class to its platform. In addition to its FX, money market, vanilla options, interest rate swaps and FRA trading silos, the platform now supports commercial paper (CP) trading. The new module is in the final stages of testing before a live rollout at the end of Q3, according to the company.

   Christoph Perger, head of marketing at 360T, says the CP product was developed after extensive demand from 360T's corporate clients. "Commercial paper is becoming a much more interesting instrument for refinancing in corporate treasuries.” he says.

   "We have developed a graphical interface that allows the corporate treasury to emit commercial paper to its dealer banks, who will then be able to trade it externally with their institutional clients, “he continues. "The only prerequisite of this is that the client of the bank has to be on the network. If it is not, the paper has to be traded offline. Notwithstanding this, the initial corporate-bank contact is fully automated.”

   In addition to the release of CP trading, 360T has refined its money market module to allow treasuries to rollover maturing loans and deposits. "We think this is a very important feature.” says Perger,"lt enables corporates to reduce those costs associated with renewing maturing deals.”

   360T has also rolled out functionality that allows buy side clients using the money markets silo to have multiple execution capabilities. Perger explains that this enhancement is aimed at the very busy treasury executing large volume business, adding that the system provides a scroll bar for an unlimited number of prices to be hit simultaneously. "This is really just an extension of current market practice, we were asked by our clients to provide this functionality and were able to do so very quickly,” he says.

   Another development in recent months has been the release of 360T's internal dealing engine, I-TEX, which allows subsidiaries to trade. I-TEX is up and running with several customers, according to Perger, and allows the central treasury to tailor the platform automatically to allow subsidiaries certain dealing rights.

   This is an enhancement on the originally released technology. Previously, the central treasury had to provide 360T with the details of the company's hedging strategies, the routing, structure and permissioning relating to subsidiaries, and 360T would tailor the product to provide subsidiaries with, for example, a certain bank basket with which to trade.

   This enhancement to I-TEX means however, that the treasurer can define his or her internal routing rules. This is fully configurable by currency, subsidiary, individual traders or countries, and has been achieved by the production of a graphical interface that in effect takes 360T out of the loop and cedes control of the online dealing process to the corporate treasury itself. Central treasury intervention levels can also be set by the treasurer, a process that Perger says can be configured, intra- minute according to market conditions.

   "We consider this to be a very powerful tool for the corporate treasurer,” he adds, "And is very easy to use by anybody with knowledge of a basic Windows application. This has been very well received by our corporate clients who have heavy internal traffic.”

   Looking ahead, 360T is keen to promote auto-quoting capabilities across its platform, a development that Perger sees as vital to a fully automated transaction cycle. He acknowledges that some banks may not have auto-trading technology in place, but feels that it is only a matter of time before it is provided. "Many banks on our platform are very powerful in terms of deal flow, however they have some technology developments to make, "he says. "Auto-pricing is gaining in popularity amongst clients and banks, therefore I feel it is likely that the practice will become the norm for vanilla trades. We would certainly encourage our banks to look into auto-quoting."

   360T is keen to avoid the development of a phenomena wherein smaller banks suffer because they do not have the resources to incorporate an auto-pricer. "We want to level the playing field for everyone," explains Perger.

   Straight-through processing (STP) projects are also in development according to Perger. 360T is already connected to SunGard and SAP, and has plans to connect to Wall Street Systems, Trema and several other treasury management system (TMS) providers.

   "This will mean we cover up to 85% of the regular landscape of TMS vendors,“ he explains. "We have several of these interfaces under development. We have auto- configured the interface up to a certain stage, after that we have a little amount of individual work to do to connect to the TMS, but nothing too demanding."

   Technical skills remain at the centre of what 360T offers. Perger notes that the portal has made good progress over the past few months and says that its development processes are getting quicker.

   "We have always been committed to being as flexible as possible and to provide solutions in the quickest time possible,“ he says, "And with our recent developments, we are gaining more and more experience which is cutting our development time even further."