Tokyo - Nissan Century Securities, which is launching a new service catering to both foreign and local demand for cash equities, has selected Fidessa group plc's Japanese trading platform to support order flows, Fidessa said.

Nissan Century is the only Japanese domestic brokerage firm that offers access to the four major Japanese exchanges -- the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), Osaka Stock Exchange (OSE), Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) and Tokyo Grain Exchange (TGE) -- as a clearing member/participant.

Fidessa said the platform's trading tools, such as algorithmic trading and smart order routing, support complex business processes and will allow Nissan Century to deliver better service to clients.

"The dramatically improved speeds of execution offered by the TSE's arrowhead system have influenced off-shore prop firms, who have been trading mainly derivatives, to shift their interests to cash equities," said Tomoaki Hirao, head of global sales and derivative planning at Nissan Century Securities. "Our main aim for supporting domestic cash equity trading is to attract new off-shore customers to trade Japanese markets."

Tatsuya Yamada, Deputy Director and Executive Officer of Product Planning at Nissan Century Securities added:" To continue to expand our business with domestic clients, supporting electronic trading for cash equities is an essential element for today's trading environment. With Fidessa's technology, we intend to start offering DMA (Direct Market Access) services to non-member firms in the near future. To provide an environment where clients can trade with lower costs, Fidessa is going to be an ideal system with its comprehensive global connectivity and high speed trading technology - including algorithmic trading - as a ready to use packaged solution."

Ian Chilton, CEO Fidessa Japan, comments: "Over the last few years, Fidessa's strategy in Japan has been to heavily invest in the development our Japanese platform, in order to fully meet the exacting demands of the domestic market, whilst simultaneously providing our Japanese clients easy access to global markets, international and domestic counterparties, and to the most advanced, high-performance, multi-asset, trading technology available anywhere. We are very gratified that this ongoing investment, and "best of both worlds" approach, has now been validated by our exciting new partnership with Nissan Century Securities."