Deutsche Bank Exposes Code to Public

For the good of all Wall Street.

Thats the reason behind Deutsche Banks decision to make its computer code publicly available to any and all. The bank is hoping others Wall Street firms will follow help create a common industry standard for trading technology.

According to a report in Reuters, Deutsche said it will put more than 150,000 lines of code from its electronic platform Autobahn into the public domain so that applications from different providers can use it as a shared system. The code will also be integrated into the Symphony messaging platform, which is used by a number of Wall Street banks.

By making this code publicly available, we aim to create a common industry standard that will deliver a faster and more convenient service to clients, strengthen controls and reduce costs, Peter Wharton-Hood, chief operating officer of Deutsches corporate and investment bank, told Reuters.

The code, known as Plexus Interop, is designed to connect thousands of different applications from across the financial services industry, enabling banks and clients systems to talk to each other. Currently, many market participants use multiple applications for data, news and trading that work independently of each other.

The bank said that feedback from clients suggested that they were keen to use a standard platform for trading applications that was not the proprietary solution of a single provider. Deutsche Bank reviewed the commercial products available in the market and decided to create a solution when none of them fulfilled its needs.