John White, CEO, 3di, said, “We are not traditionally a supplier of market data expense management software, but we do have an older light-weight inventory – Abacus, that we have been using for many years to underpin our smaller managed service clients. It has become increasingly clear – through direct demand on us – that there is place in the market for an up-to-date entry-level Excel replacement tool for those firms who cannot justify the cost or complexity of a heavy-weight market data inventory.”

“Our Abacus system needed a technology refresh so we started to rebuild components of it – some of which will remain – when we were presented with the opportunity to utilise BST’s FinOffice components to complete the rebuild without re-inventing the wheel,” he added.

Abacus version 4 will now serve as a stand-alone market data inventory, as well as continue to service 3di’s managed market data clients, on a more contemporary, state of the art technology stack.

Martin Reichmuth, CEO of BST, further qualifies the relationship. He said, “Our technology partnership with 3di is bi-lateral. We are currently implementing aspects of the Profiler vendor intelligence platform into FinOffice and looking at some of the functional components within their Data compliance & Dependency Management (DCDM) product that we might re-use.”

Both parties stress that the relationship is strategic, but respectfully non-exclusive as both firms look to strengthen other partnerships to the betterment of their individual product and service lines.