Thomson Reuters turns up heat in chat wars

Thomson Reuters has given users of its flagship chat service access to a directory of around 250,000 financial professionals via an agreement that comes amid increased competition between instant messenger providers, reports Anna Irrera of Financial News.

Irera writes, “Users of the Thomson Reuters‘ Eikon Messenger service will now be able to search and connect with contacts registered with Markit Collaboration Services, an open messaging network initiative launched last October in partnership with Thomson Reuters and nine banks including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JP Morgan.

“The network allows employees from participating firms to chat with each other regardless of the messaging platform they use. The directory, a key component of the service, is a contact book of validated identity and contact information of individuals connected to the federated chat platforms. Last month US investment bank Jefferies became the latest large firm to join the initiative.

“Competition between chat services providers has been increasing as banks trim costs and also in the wake of benchmark-rigging scandals, which brought to light instances of traders using instant messaging services to collude to manipulate markets.

“As a result, banks and other financial institutions have been paying greater attention to the means by which their employees communicate over chat, including considering alternatives to the chat tool offered by Bloomberg through its terminal service, which has over 300,000 subscribers. Bloomberg did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.”

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