Execution-management system provider FlexTrade has integrated Symphony’s secure messaging platform with its trading platform.

“The integration lets clients communicate directly from their trading blotter over Symphony in a secure and compliant way,” said Andy Mahoney, director of business development for FlexTrade UK.

Driving the integration was a sea change in traders’ behavior across the Americas, Europe and Asia that FlexTrade noticed, according to Mahoney.

“People want to be able to communicate from their blotters,” he said. “Obviously, integrating Symphony into the FlexTrade platform is the next step in that.”

FlexTrade clients are free to decided how they wish integrate Symphony into their current workflow.

Some of the basic capabilities include firing off automated messages if a specific set of criteria is met.

“For example, if brokers fill your orders outside the spread, clients can trigger a message asking the brokers why they filled the order outside of the spread,” said Mahoney. “Or if you get a lit execution on a dark algo, it also can trigger an automated message to the broker.”

FlexTrade also plans to add the ability to search for information and research on specific issues from the blotter, capture conversations in the platform’s FlexTCA transaction-cost analysis tool as well as support fixed-income liquidity discovery, inventory distribution and price negotiation in the coming months.

Since the integration relies on the Symphony’s desktop API, FlexTrade users can integrate it with any version of the FlexTrade EMS that they may be running.

Clients just need to contact their FlexTrade support person, who will tell them how to integrate the API and how it could possibly fit into their specific set up, he added.