The Challenge
“Our customers are under huge cost pressure,” says Magnus Carlebjörk, product manager responsible for Market connectivity and Infrastructure at Neonet. “Because we’re a small and agile agency broker, we can help them control costs by offering streamlined, no-frills services that does the job effectively without expensive overheads.”
To fulfil this mission, Neonet needs to ensure that every part of its own operation is as flexible and efficient as possible. The company’s small team of sales traders and IT specialists devotes its energies to developing, delivering and managing sophisticated strategies and IT systems that underpin all of its services (which range from best execution and algorithmic trading to clearing and settlement services). One layer down, the efficiency of Neonet’s execution systems depends on the connected environment in which its IT infrastructure is located. Although Neonet is headquartered in Sweden and was established in 1996 to deliver electronic trading services in the Nordics, market liberalisation has shifted its service focus to the trading hub of London.
That’s where Interxion comes in. “The Interxion London campus is a real Financial Hub,” says Carlebjörk. “Here we can connect cost-effectively and with sub-millisecond latency to all the trading venues we want, to providers of market data and access services, and to many of our customers.”
Connectivity is definitely costing us less now that we’re with Interxion. This helps us to continue to deliver costs savings to our customers.
The Solution
Carlebjörk highlights three characteristics that Neonet particularly values in the data centre service that Interxion delivers: “Firstly, Interxion runs a very high-quality facility in terms of technical excellence, reliability and redundancy for our alwayson systems. Secondly, they’re as flexible and responsive as our customers expect us to be. Thirdly, like us Interxion is independent, with a focus on neutrality and choice.”
Independence is a critical part of the value that Neonet offers to its customers, and has become even more so with increasing scrutiny and regulation of the proprietary activities of financial institutions. Interxion’s cloud- and carrier-neutrality is therefore a good cultural fit for Neonet, but it offers tangible benefits too. Interxion’s neutrality attracts a very wide range of carriers, service providers and financial market participants to its data centres, giving Neonet great choice in who to connect its systems to and how. If a trading venue, financial service provider, partner or customer is located anywhere in the London campus, Neonet can choose to cross connect to them — which it can do for free.
On top of this the company can choose the best offerings from more than 50 communication providers in the campus. “We’ve been in another data centre in London previously,” says Carlebjörk, “and connectivity is definitely costing us less now that we’re with Interxion. This helps us to continue to deliver cost savings to our customers.” ‘
They understand our business’ Equally important for Neonet is Interxion’s responsiveness and transparency, because when Neonet needs to make a change that depends on an action from Interxion, they need it to be done quickly and accurately. “It’s really easy working with Interxion, says Carlebjörk.”They own and operate their own facilities and they do it well. They always know what’s going on and they understand our business, so when we need them to do something it just happens — cleanly, quickly and properly.” Neonet is continually evaluating its business models, services, systems and infrastructure to ensure that it can continue to offer the best possible service at the lowest price.
The Interxion London campus offers the flexibility for Neonet to expand or consolidate infrastructure as necessary and Carlebjörk looks forward to a long relationship between the two companies. “It’s good to have a partner in Interxion who understands our industry and can help us respond efficiently to whatever the future brings.”