Company Overview - History

The company is well known by the Greek Stock Market professionals for providing state of the art software applications covering the data processing, the organizational and the information needs of Banks, Brokerage Houses, their investment counterparts and their Order Forwarded Agents.

The company’s first application “BROKER”, which came out in 1988, provided only limited automation for the basic routine operations of Stock Brokerage houses. “BROKER” was gradually substituted by the company’s flagship, the considerably more functional and ergonomic “XRHMA Plus”.

“XRHMA Plus” is the only complete software environment for the Greek stock market combining the different functions required by a Brokerage Firm’s back, middle and front office operations. Broker Systems has been able to promote “XRHMA Plus” to almost all Brokerage Firms, active in the Greek Stock Market, mostly due to the high degree of professionalism and consistency with which it treats its clients. By the end of 2000 the company was holding a market share of around 90% in the Greek Brokerage Market, while at the same time more than 80% of the country’s Order Agents were amongst its clients.

It is important to emphasize that Broker Systems has been a valuable contributor to the modernization of the Greek Stock Market mainly because of the requirements and standardization its application software introduced. Building on this success and using an experienced group of software developers / analysts, the company released in early summer of 2000 the successor of “XRHMA Plus”, “XRHMA”, a software platform based entirely on Microsoft’s windows environment with highly developed functionality, ergonomics and user friendliness. The new platform includes, apart from the core applications dealing with the daily back – middle office operations, a number of add-on applications enabling and supporting the Stock as well as the Foreign Markets and Derivative’s Market Transactions. In addition, the company has produced a set of new interfaces and front-ends utilizing TCP/IP and WEB/technologies.

Broker System’s Philosophy

In early 1999 Broker Systems has taken the strategic decision to use the latest of Microsoft’s software application tools and development philosophy.

All new Broker Systems applications are totally compatible with Microsoft’s perception of the three-tier model where the Data Base, the Business Logic (Application) and the Front-End environment (Clients) are clearly distinguished.

The chosen philosophy in designing products offers Broker System’s applications all the advantages needed for fast and efficient development, scalability, reliability and seamless interconnection with e-commerce applications following widely accepted standards and security requirements.

The XRHMA Platform

The XRHMA Platform is the new environment under which Broker Systems has integrated a number of software units (The Core) covering all the basic operating functions and information needs of Brokerage firms.

Around the core system there have been a number of extra modules covering interfaces with Host Banking Systems, operational needs of smaller business units such as the Agents, branches and the extra functionality required for handling specialized products (Repos, IPO’s, Commodities, Foreign Exchange, MF’s, Warrants, Derivatives, Fix Engine, Andromeda, Hermes, Swift I/F, Invoicing, Communication Center, etc)

In addition Broker Systems, utilizing the advantages of Microsoft’s Application tools, has developed a number of “clients” linked to the core system and using the latest TCP/IP and Web technologies.

Customers

Broker Systems serve the complex IT needs of brokerage firms in Greece, Cyprus, Romania, and other market participants. Due to the special characteristics of its applications that have no match in the markets where present, it currently enjoys a significant market share as it is indicated in the Broker’s Systems Client List.

Installed base (Market Share / Product Positioning)

Broker Systems, due to its consistent and highly professional attitude in supporting a client base with multiple needs, has been able to gain an unusually high level of market penetration. Currently, the Company serves nearly 65% of the Greek Brokerage firms, 40% of the Cypriot and approximately 20% of the Romanian market.

Personnel

The Company has over 50 employees, at its headquarters in Athens and through well organized collaboration offices, they are providing high level support to all of their customers located in Greece, and also maintains very well organized Help-Desk, providing 24 hours 7 days online support and consulting services to Greek / Cypriot and to rapidly expanding Romanian Brokerage Market.

Experience – support

The Company’s founders, Nikos Pentheroudakis and Irene Adamopoulou were the first software developers involved in the business of developing application software for brokerage firms in Greece since 1988. Since then, the original minimal functionality of these programs has grown and matured together with the Greek Stock Market in order to cover all the requirements of modern Brokerage firm’s operations.

In the last years Broker Systems has been systematically acquiring high caliber personnel for all its senior business analysis and program development positions. In addition in areas of great expertise the company has used external consultants with acknowledged experience in financial market operations.

The company has also developed a large department of experienced staff offering non-stop 24-hour/7-days a week customer support. It acceptable in the Capital Market that Broker Systems is the only software applications developer in the Greek environment that has introduced the preventive method of developing and support by visiting its customers in advance and making inquiries for possible difficulties they have encountered while using its software products.

The range and depth of knowledge and experience of Broker Systems employees has greatly improved since the company took the strategic decision to expand into other European markets starting from Cyprus and Romania.

Broker Systems is currently the only Greek supplier of a full End-To-End Service and Straight-Through-Processing systems covering:

• Online Trading – Ordering
• Order Routing, Management and Analytics
• Trading Systems, Position Keeping and Transaction Auditing,
• Clearing and Settlement,
• Broker Client Accounting
• Open API’s

Broker Systems has a proven ability to work with large organizations in Greece including a lot of Banks. This has been due mainly to its unique covering of the entire Life Cycle Trading in Securities and other market instruments as well as to the professional support level offered by its experienced consulting and dedicated technical staff.

Besides, Broker Systems has become a very experienced developer of high-performance networked solutions. Its technical staff knows in depth the requirements imposed by currently used sophisticated communication technologies and operating systems over multifunctional and highly complicated hardware platforms.