In 1999, IT and trading professionals from Citigroup, Societe Generale and Credit Agricole joined together to create smartTrade’s liquidity management system (LMS). An LMS from smartTrade allows banks, brokerages, asset managers and large hedge funds to develop multiasset dealing platforms that aggregate liquidity from multiple sources.

In January, smartTrade migrated its front-end interfaces to HTML5. The open HTML5 framework enables dealing platforms to integrate with virtually any back-end trading system.

LMS consists of five core modules, including LiquidityConnect, LiquidityAggregator, LiquidityDistributor, LiquidityOrchestrator and LiquidityCrosser. Financial institutions can use these modules either separately or cooperatively to connect electronically to a number of trading venues without worrying about different messaging protocols.

smartTrade’s LMS also brings together liquidity from many different sources into a single order book while distributing customized pricing to clients. The platform also manages client order flow while providing smart order routing using smartTrade’s proprietary algorithms. Liquidity can be internalized or routed to external venues with orders managed through their lifecycles.

So why HTML5? According to smartTrade CTO David Vincent, HTML5 meets financial institutions’ demand for more open, cost-effective and agile user interface solutions. With HTML5 and its WebSockets API that delivers a socket connection to a server, Web-based applications like LMS can stream real-time market data and news.

HTML5 also allows LMS to deliver multimedia content including graphics, equations, videos and charts without plugins. Decision makers can then view the data on their desktops, tablets or mobile phones.

In addition to transitioning LMS to an HTML5 code base, smartTrade has also released an HTML5 development platform. With the platform, financial institutions can create customized widgets that will support specific functions and asset classes.

smartTrade’s HTML5 framework is integrated with its LMS and also with its client-facing LiquidityFX products. This HTML5 integration gives customers that develop their own widgets a fast time to market without racking up significant costs.

Vincent also pointed out that customers don’t have to use smartTrade engines to benefit from the new framework. That statement speaks to the beauty and versatility that is HTML5.