About single-dealer platforms

What is a single-dealer platform?

This page contains a brief explanation of single-dealer platforms. If you would like to read a more detailed discussion of single-dealer platforms please read Caplin's Single-Dealer Platform white paper.

A multi-dealer platform is an Internet trading venue for a particular type of asset class, FX for instance, which presents prices from, and the opportunity to trade with, several dealers.

In contrast, a single-dealer portal is an Internet portal which presents prices from, and the opportunity to trade with, only one dealer.

So a single-dealer platform (SDP) is the technology infrastructure on which a single-dealer portal runs.

By choosing, and building upon, the correct set of technology, a single-dealer platform can span multiple asset classes, integrating them together in the client application presented to the end-user.

Taking this one step further, by choosing the right underlying framework it's not only possible to offer prices for, and trading in, multiple different asset classes, but also to design client applications designed for different types of end-user.

So you could have, for example, one interface for internal traders, a different one for hedge-fund managers and yet another for FX day traders.

These could all be operated on top of the same single-dealer platform which has suitable interfaces to your internal trading, pricing and permissioning systems in multiple asset classes.

Caplin provides a framework to investment banks that enables them to quickly build, or enhance, their single-dealer offering, or to create a single-dealer platform for the first time.

Caplin's SDP framework, Caplin Xaqua, is easily implemented for an initial asset class, often FX, and is then easily extensible to include other asset classes. 

This business agility means that a bank's single-dealer offering can be extended quickly and easily to meet business requirements or market conditions.

Our customers currently provide a whole range of instrument classes in their single-dealer platforms, including: FX cash, FX futures and options, Rates, IRDs and Equities. Credit and CDSs are under development at a number of firms.

Caplin's framework supports a range of client-side applications, from Rich Internet Applications written in Ajax, Flex or Silverlight, through locally installed applications typically written in Java or .NET, through to direct API's that connect the single-dealer platform to a client-side remote application.