Frequently asked questions

Here we answer some frequently asked questions about single-dealer platforms and Caplin's technology.

Q:  What is a single-dealer platform?

A:  A single-dealer platform (sometimes referred to as a single-bank platform) is the infrastructure that supports an electronic, client-facing trading system commonly put in place by a large bank to give its buy-side customers and other end-users access and a user interface (UI) to participate in single or multi-asset trading. These systems are often referred to as “single-dealer portals”, or “single-bank portals” and they are used to trade directly online with the bank. 

In contrast to multi-dealer platforms, single-dealer platforms enable banks to give their end users more than just prices. Banks can deliver access to a wide variety of instruments via a single browser screen, as well as research and analysis tools within a completely customised UI. 

For a more complete discussion of single-dealer platforms visit the What is a single-dealer platform? page or the Wikipedia page on single-dealer platforms.

Q:  Who are the end-users of single-dealer platforms?

A:  There are different types of end-users that use the same supporting single-dealer platform infrastructure. Firstly, there are the bank’s external end-users, such as traders from other banks, corporate treasurers, hedge funds or pension funds who are looking to trade directly with the bank. 

Secondly, there may be internal end-users within the bank such as sales or proprietary traders who are looking to use the system to conduct trading. 

And thirdly there may be other internal end-users in other bank companies such as the commercial or retail branches of the bank who conduct trading on behalf of their own customers.

Q:  How does Caplin help a bank create its own single-dealer platform?

A:  Caplin's technology enables an investment bank to quickly implement multi-product, single-dealer platforms for use by end users for price discovery and trade execution. 

Caplin Xaqua is a complete server-side framework for building multi-product, single-dealer platforms. Caplin Trader is an HTML5-ready framework for Caplin Xaqua that enables a bank to build a unique fully-featured trading workstation that runs in a standard browser.

The resulting applictions are flexible and easily extensible – additional asset class trade workflows can be defined in an XML model that is implemented by Caplin Xaqua. Furthermore, the Caplin Xaqua permissioning API enables you to assign permissions to different components. The permissions infrastructure allows you to apply per user pricing, and different workflows for both different segments and different users within segments.  A unique user experience can be delivered to each type of user from retail across corporate, into institutional and also internal sales traders and proprietary traders. 

Q: What's Caplin's position on HTML5?

A: Caplin Systems welcomes the increasingly widespread adoption of HTML5. The HTML5 standard is primarily intended to make applications that run in a browser easier to build and better to use. That is exactly what we've been doing for years for trading applications with our Caplin Trader framework, and with HTML5 it now works better than ever.

Caplin is committed to enabling our customers to develop compelling financial trading applications that run in browsers without requiring add-ins. We have continued to do this despite the inconsistency of implementation and the idiosyncrasies of different browsers and versions, in the confidence that these would soon converge on a widely implemented standard. The emergence of HTML5 is a clear vindication of this strategy.

Caplin Trader already includes many HTML5-compliant capabilities, such as the use of Canvas for charting, and the Caplin FormBuilder HTML5 form framework. The company is actively implementing further HTML5-compliant capabilities.

Of course many users, particularly in Finance and in Government, continue to use older browsers that do not support HTML5. We will continue to ensure that our clients are able to provide the best possible experience for those users while including higher performance and improved user experience for those whose browsers are HTML5 capable.

Q:  Banks already provide trading channels to their clients. Why do they need single-dealer platforms?  

A:  True, clients can still use voice trading or multi-dealer platforms, but single-dealer platforms offer a personalised channel to clients that gives a bank a differentiated position among their competitors and the ability to communicate directly with its clients. A single-dealer platform enables a bank to create a full service offering, easily making its user’s experience unique in both product offerings and look and feel. Implemented properly, a single-dealer platform will reduce costs, increase flow, offer cross sell opportunities, and ultimately, improve profitability. 

Q:   Can’t a bank build a single-dealer platform itself – why should it consider existing technology?

A: In our experience it takes around three to four times longer for a bank to build many of the components that already exist in technologies such as Caplin’s. The key lies in the fact that Caplin delivers a pre-built comprehensive framework and a set of interconnected components, so a bank is not starting from scratch. The framework is easily implemented and the components are modified and extended to reflect the bank’s business logic. 

Delivering the platform to end-users faster means three things: Firstly, time-to-market-advantage means the bank is delivering its full service offering much sooner and driving profitability earlier than its competitors. Secondly, getting a single-dealer platform to end-users ahead of the competition drives client retention and potentially attracts new clients. And thirdly, the less time and effort it takes to implement the bank's single-dealer portal the less money it will cost and the greater the opportunity for the bank to focus its resources on delivering its own particular services and featuring its own added value in the final offering.

Q: If I choose to use Caplin Trader and Caplin Xaqua to build my single-dealer platform, will it look the same as all your other customers' systems?

A: No, not at all. The advantage of using a framework is that the way the final system works, its look-and-feel, the functionality, workflow and products will all be determined by you. Take a look at the Caplin Trader page to see just how different pages accessing the same trading system can look.

Q: Does Caplin use standard technologies and interfaces?

A: We utilise standard industry technologies and we provide APIs in JavaScript, C/C++, Java, .NET, Flex and Silverlight. Our frameworks can also be used to build APIs to other systems, including those developed internally by banks. Caplin's products are written in C or C++.

Q: If I adopt Caplin Xaqua, can I replace parts of it with my own developed code?

A: Yes. Both Caplin Xaqua and Caplin Trader are frameworks. They incorporate functionality that we have seen being used repeatedly by banks building single-dealer platforms and other high-performance, real-time trading and data messaging applications. However not every bank wants the same solution to the same problem, so each component can be modified, extended and enhanced, or replaced with a custom-developed alternative.

Q: Does Caplin offer support and professional services? How do these work?

A: Yes, Caplin offers support for our own frameworks. We provide a range of support packages to cover your requirements. Clearly we can support only code that we've developed either in our released software or that we've developed specifically for you. If you develop your own modules and components you will need to arrange to support these yourself.

However one of the clear advantages of using an already existing framework such as Caplin Xaqua is that we continue to develop, support and enhance it. If you build your own system, the support burden falls entirely on your organisation, bearing in mind that the development team you assembled for the project may not want, or be able to, support the system once the project is deployed.

Caplin's professional services offer as much, or as little, support as you need. We can provide initial project consultancy and training to get your entire team trained and up to speed. Alternatively we can take on some of the implementation and integration work for you, working closely with your team. We are highly experienced at user experience (UX) design, project scoping and integrated project management and also offer a UX design service to supplement your in-house expertise.