Financial firms seeking Bloomberg alternative

Nathaniel Popper of The New York Times reports about how some Wall Street firms are seeking an alternative to Bloomberg LP’s services in the wake of the data and news service company’s snooping scandal.

Popper writes, “Two competitors to Bloomberg — Thomson Reuters and Markit — have already signed an agreement to develop the technology, according to people involved in the deal who requested anonymity because the negotiations were not complete.

“Reuters and Markit are said to be working in cooperation with banks including Barclays, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, the people said. Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs have been even more involved, agreeing to use the service when it is introduced. The program would allow bank employees to talk to business partners at other firms in the way that they do now on the closed Bloomberg network. Such chat systems are vital to everyday work on Wall Street, like communicating with competitors and clients to work out prices for trades.

“One banker involved in the conversation said: ‘The chat application within the Bloomberg terminal has become a very powerful tool. If that didn’t exist, we’d have a substantially lower need for terminals than we do.’

“The effort to create a new messaging network was in motion months before Bloomberg’s customers began to complain about the confidential information available to Bloomberg journalists. Both developments underscore the frustration on Wall Street with the powerful place that Bloomberg occupies in the financial infrastructure, and the lack of alternatives to its expensive terminals.”

Read more here.