Axion4gstp was established in March 2000 to develop the global straight-through processing initiative. The company was born out of a collaboration between the Swiss securities depository SIS SegaIntersettle, messaging service SWIFT and TKS-Teknosoft SA, on behalf of the Global Straight-Through Processing Association (GSTPA), an industry-wide initiative founded in August 1998 to promote straight-through processing (STP).
Since the GSTPA - an organization comprising representatives in all sectors of the industry, including custodians, broker-dealers and investment managers, and such names as Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Brown Brothers Harriman and Fidelity Investments - chose the Axion4 consortium to develop its industry-standard STP solution, the company has concentrated its efforts on developing its Transaction Flow Manager (TFM), the central component of the STP solution. After 18 months of development, the hard work is beginning to bear fruit. Roger Weidman, director of sales and marketing for Axion4, says: "We're now into pilot testing phase and things are going very well."