Latest News

AVT to offer the first genuine IP Trader Turret

Monday, 18th June 2007

IP Trade range of Profile Trading Turrets provide the most secure and reliable IP Trading Turrets for financial institutions globally. The IP Trade turret offers all the features normally associated with traditionally deployed trading rooms, but delivers these via a range of IP-PBX vendors’ solutions. In addition, the open standards turret architecture allows IP Trade to seamlessly integrate with the application environment of the institution.

IP Trade Solution Key benefits

IP Trade enables financial institutions to provide the highest level of functionality and availability for their trader community, whilst uniquely delivering the benefits of enterprise class IP telephony to the trading environment.



The business case for IP telephony in the Trading Rooms

The development of IP telephony (IPT) has advanced significantly since the major vendors launched the first systems in 1999. Presently IPT can be seen to be deployed for mid and back office functions of the financial services institution, but a secondary vendor is purchased to deliver the front office, trader communication infrastructure and services.

IP Trade believes that isolating the trading floor from today's feature rich, highly available and secure IP-PBX limits the institutions ability to realise advantage in the following areas;

Significant TCO reduction - through reduced capital outlay, simplified management of a single environment and reduced support costs
Increased productivity - by delivering a converged environment, where for the first time the trading communication platform is integrated seamlessly into the application layer, using truly open standards.
An enhanced business continuity strategy - by splitting trader communication infrastructure over many sites, thereby cost effectively delivering many options for disaster recovery, global free seating or home working.
IP Trade has focused considerable resources on delivering the first secure, highly available trading turret that integrates into the IPT infrastructure as another terminal, but delivers all the functionality required by the most demanding traders. It has been engineered to provide this full range of features within Avaya, Cisco, and other environments.

Trading Room Telephony Features

The Profile-IK, Profile-SK and Profile-EK trading turrets support up to 34 lines, 6000 shortcuts, Intercom, Private lines, up to 6 hooks and speakers mixing up to 20 channels. Voice recording is delivered by duplicating each voice stream directly to a variety of IP based loggers. The integrated video camera allows video calls to intuitively be placed and received.

In addition, the inherent IP-PBX features can be easily configured to enhance the value to the trading community.

IP Trade has also developed technology to enable the IP-PBX to operate as a non-blocking switch (patent pending).

Reliability and Availability

The Profile-IK, Profile-SK and Profile-EK trading turrets are built to ensure the highest availability.

They can connect to clusters of IP PBXs, they provide 3 Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000 over UTP) ports that can be used to connect to 1, 2 or even 3 different switches or external devices with a sub-second convergence time.
There are no moving mechanical components present within the device.
The core software is customized by IP trade to ensure excellent reliability, but retain the benefits of utilising open standards and non-proprietary operating systems.
The IP Trade Turret is also key tool for improving the effectiveness of the bank's traders. Apart from the inherent ability to trade from any office, home or whilst on the move, a range of applications are available, today, that deliver real productivity gains.

Credit card Industry. Implications for call recording. PCI DSS

Friday, 15th June 2007

PCI Compliance and The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard - a rough guide .

Organisations handling credit card transactions are juicy targets to the professional “black hat”, a fact that has been brought home by a number of high profile credit card hacking incidents, TJX (the parent company of T.K. Maxx) being the best known. To counter public outcry and a calls for increased legislation two major players in the Payment Card Industry - Visa and Master card - teamed up to create the PCI Data Security Standard.

The PCI Data Security Standard is intended to give companies handling credit card transactions a framework and set of guidelines for doing so securely: how to build a secure network, protect cardholder data and manage/monitor vulnerabilities and threats. The standard embodies sound policy for any organisation, outlining the need for a documented security infrastructure, agreed processes for handling threat scenarios, need-to-know access procedures and so on.
“PCI standards apply to all databases holding card and customer information. The telephone conversations stored need to be treated in the same way as data contained within a CRM application or traditional database.”
Unfortunately many organisations who should be in compliance with the PCI standard fall some way short, and the result can be a security breach, temporary or even permanent suspension of your ability to handle credit card transactions.
For many companies it’s only a small step to full PCI compliance, and all thats requied is an assessment by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) assessing your general level of compliance, highlighting areas that may need further work and providing suggestions on how to maintain full compliance on an ongoing basis.
As this standard effects large numbers of AVT clients and the wider business community, AVT have researched the area throughly and engaged with a leading QSA provider. We can help customers through the process and provide expert advise on compliance to PCI-DSS standards.

For companies that have been unaware of the standard or unable to aim for full compliance until now we can provide more in-depth help with a quick start program to move towards compliance, plan and create a fully secure network and put measures in place for running your PCI technology safely.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI – DSS)
Telephone Call Recording Implications

What is PCI - DSS?
The credit card industry formed a self regulation group and set of security standards to keep regulatory authorities off their back about fraud and consumer privacy. The potentially huge fines & litigation risks on companies whose customers card numbers get stolen, and can’t demonstrate due care by following the security standards.
The standard applies to all organisations that process more than 20,000 card transactions per year, equating to 54 (approx) transactions per day.
Organisations must ensure customer data is stored/accessed securely and only retained when absolutely necessary.
Link to the main website: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/index.htm
What issues may I have with Voice Recording?
PCI standards apply to all databases holding card and customer information. The telephone conversations stored need to be treated in the same way as data contained within a CRM application or traditional database.
Many voice recorders store data in traditional WAV. files, such files are easy to replay using any media player. Some recorders use proprietary storage formats which are less accessible but can be replayed using software available free of charge on the internet.
Encryption is a critical component of cardholder data protection. If an intruder circumvents other network security controls and gains access to encrypted data, without the proper cryptographic keys, the data is unreadable and unusable to that person. When transferring files over a public network this is even more important.
In most cases the voice recording will contain all details of a customer transaction, with the PAN (16 Digit main card number) and the CVC2 (3 digit security code on the back of the card) the PCI standard explicitly states that the CVC2 code cannot be stored subsequent to authorisation, therefore steps have to be taken to ensure such information is not captured in the voice recording.
The standard dictates any stored data should be accessed only by authorised personnel, and with strong access controls and audit trails.

Help is at Hand
For many companies it’s only a small step to full PCI compliance, and all thats requied is an assessment by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) assessing your general level of compliance, highlighting areas that may need further work and providing suggestions on how to maintain full compliance on an ongoing basis.
As this standard effects large numbers of AVT clients and the wider business community, AVT have researched the area throughly and engaged with a leading QSA provider. We can help customers through the process and provide expert advise on compliance to PCI-DSS standards.

For companies that have been unaware of the standard or unable to aim for full compliance until now we can provide more in-depth help with a quick start program to move towards compliance, plan and create a fully secure network and put measures in place for running your PCI technology safely.

NEWCOB voice recording legislation proposal

Wednesday, 16th May 2007

FSA MiFID Consultation paper NEWCOB

Telephone Recording –recording of voice conversations and electronic communications

The FSA have recently released a Consultation Paper (CP) to seek views on the proposals reforming the remaining elements of the Conduct of Business (COB) regime that are outside the scope of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). The scope of MiFID is narrower than the scope of designated investment business as a result, there are a number of areas of business covered by the COB sourcebook which are outside the scope of MiFID.

The Consultation Paper addresses the remaining COB requirements which, in the main, concern ‘Specialist Regimes’ – a tailored set of requirements for particular, often narrow classes of business. It has been considered whether and to what extent each of these should be preserved given other developments such as the creation of NEWCOB and the move to Principles-based Regulation (PBR).Of relevance to us are the proposals to introduce a telephone recording requirement that could apply to both MiFID and non-MiFID.


The Proposal Chapter 19

The proposal is that firms be required to record telephone lines used for voice conversations that involve the receipt of client orders and the negotiating, agreeing and arranging of transactions across the equity, bond and financial commodity and derivatives markets, and to retain electronic communications relevant to these activities. The term electronic communications includes fax, e-mail, chat and instant messaging – but, obviously, is not limited to those.

Activities within the scope of the proposal include proprietary trading and other principal dealing and agency broking and the associated sales functions. The range of instruments is drawn deliberately widely but does capture the dealing activities of individuals managing such funds. So, relevant firms will include banks, stockbrokers, investment managers, CIS managers and hedge fund managers.

The proposal recommends that firms be required to retain the records for three years from the date of creation. It furthermore recommends that the records be kept in such a way that they are accessible for future reference; that any corrections or other amendments, and the contents of the records prior to such corrections or amendments, must be easily ascertained; and, that it must not be possible for the records otherwise to be manipulated or altered.

News from the ReCap recorder suite

Wednesday, 14th March 2007

In line with AVT’s policy of continual product development for the ReCap we have recently developed SIP, CMAPI and Nortel MLS interfaces. They are all available now. As ever the low cost of ownership and the ease of use make these options well worth a look.
Our product road map puts our screen capture and key word search solutions available in September 2007. Call your account manager for details.

We can also now host up to 240 channels of IP recording in a single dual Xeon ReCap chassis.

New Mirra® for 2007

Wednesday, 14th March 2007

 Fans of the old Racal and Thales Mirra will be happy to know that Nice have continued development of this wonderful economical and easy to use recorder.The New Mirra® Series IV will be developed to meet the same demands as its current product, offering a powerful compact recording solution based on the Linux operating system, with a full suite of browser-based interfaces and applications.
Mirra Series IV will be the successor product to Mirra Series 2, offering a channel-friendly package at a similar price to the current product, with enhanced functionality and capabilities. Beta models are available for testing with additional discounts for any interested clients.

Sunset Announcement for Mirra® Series 2 Voice Recorder

Wednesday, 14th March 2007

As part of NICE Systems ongoing commitment to specialized product development, excellent service and support, and proactive measures to reduce our impact on the environment, NICE have announced the retirement of the Mirra Series 2 recording platform and associated applications.
Mirra Sunset - End of Sale
The Mirra product will not be available for sale after 1st March 2007, after which no new Mirra products will be sold.
AVT may be able to offer longer support and ‘best endeavors’ maintenance for any existing Mirra customers. Please call our sales department to discuss the options.

Key Dates
End of Sale Announcement - Now – April 2006
End of Sale Date - March 1st 2007
End of Software Development - March 1st 2008
End of Expansion (Last upgrade Order) - March 1st 2008
End of Support Date - March 1st 2011
What Is Affected?
All Mirra hardware and compatible software applications including:
• Mirra Series 2 – Recording Platform
• Mirra Applications
• Mirra Remote Audio Unit
• Investigator Replay
• Last Message Replay – For use with Mirra
• ANI-ALI – For use with Mirra

AVT WIN AWARD FOR TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE

Wednesday, 22nd November 2006

AVT are proud to announce that they have won this years prestigious EMEA SERVICE PARTNER award.  The award  was announced at the Nice 2006 summit in Portugal and was in recognition for the quality of project management, installation and support provided to our customers and other business partners. This is based on Nice's feedback from our customers experience of dealing with us on all service and support issues.

What is WEEE and RoHS

Tuesday, 10th October 2006

WEEE & RoHS

What is WEEE & RoHS
After years of debate, technical arguments and delays, Directive 2002/95/EC on the Restriction of certain Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) and Directive 2002/96/EC on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) are finally in force across all 25 EU member states, together with Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Starting 1 July 2006, the European Union (EU) directive 2002/95/EC), bans the sale of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants. This law requires manufacturers to find new materials and develop new engineering processes for the creation of common electronic equipment, including network adapters.

Technically, any company placing non-compliant equipment on the EU market after 1 July is breaking European law and could face stiff penalties if convicted. In Ireland, the Waste Management Act makes provisions for fines of up to £10 million and ten years imprisonment for failure to comply. In addition, the authorities have the power to remove your products from the EU market.

Who is affected by RoHS
The RoHS regulation is specific to the sale of electronic equipment within the EU. However, other countries are exploring similar regulations, and it's only a matter of time before such changes must be implemented on a global scale.

AVT have ensured that all equipment and systems supplied are fully compliant with the new regulations and to this end we have full statement certifications from all of our technology partners. Links to the relevant government documents and the manufacturers statements are available on our web site www.avt-systems.co.uk
What is affected by the legislation
Although there are eight categories as listed below, the pertinent ones are the IT and telecommunications equipment covering the range of Nice and ReCap recorders which AVT supply.
 Large household appliances
 Small household appliances
 IT and telecommunication equipment
 Consumer equipment
 Lighting equipment
 Electrical and electronic tools (with the exception of large – scale stationary industrial tools)
 Toys, leisure and sports equipment
 Automatic dispensers
Certain applications listed in the RoHS Regulations are exempt, and there is also an exemption for spare parts used for the repair of equipment put on the market before 1 July 2006. The Regulations do not apply to the re-use of equipment placed on the market before 1 July 2006.

AVT ReCap Recorder Improvements

Friday, 6th October 2006

AVT's ReCap Enterprise recorder can now  house up to 240 channels in a single chassis reducing costs even further for medium sized applications. The ReCap Lite's capacity has also increased up to 64 channels in a single chassis making it the most economical high performing small recorder on the market today.  Both platform benefit from using Iomega 35GB ATAPI drives. These hard drive storage mechanisms back up and store 8 times faster than tape with 5 times more storage than DVD-RAM.

ReCap features:

• D channel detect (CTI not reqd)
• Web browser based search
• Windows platform
• Mixed protocols within the same chassis
• Multiple Voice compressions available at no extra cost
• 4-Wire protocols available
• High resilience servers as standard

Call your account manager or the sales department if you wish to see a demonstration.

Key Word Search for call recording

Tuesday, 13th June 2006

With increased scrutiny on "best practices" for various new Banking and Finance directives (MiFID & Basel II) increased pressure has come on to compliance departments to ensure that additional methods are available to protect themselves from dubious trading practices.

There are now various products available from Nice within the Nice Perform and the ReCap KWS that allow users to search recordings by key phrases or specific voice patterns. These are available as either real time or post recording facility. Call your AVT account manager for more details.

The Next Generation of VoIP: Active Recording

Friday, 7th April 2006

Passive recording, which captures customer interactions through the network, was the first step taken during the grand VoIP sweep, mainly due to advantages such as transparency to the telephony system. In spite of this advantage, passive VoIP recording entails the disadvantage of requiring additional setup by the network administrator, which results in an installation and administration overhead. Moreover, this approach was limited mainly to IP phones residing in proximity to the VoIP recording system.

An active VoIP recording solution, on the other hand, is more transparent to the network. This approach involves sending a replica of captured audio to the logger using the standard TCP/IP network routing, making the replication process transparent to the network. This is done either by the gateway or the IP phones, which means that set-up, administration and management are location-independent.

By eliminating the need for set-up, administration and management at branches or remote sites, active recording profoundly reduces the overhead and risks associated with passive recording. It helps flatten the organization, enables efficient management and administration of remote agents and agents from home, and enhances centralized recording capabilities for distributed environments.

NICE has developed a cutting edge offering for active VoIP recording that is fully integrated and supports all of the major IP telephony vendors. Furthermore, NICE is offering its VoIP Recording Gateway, which is a unique network appliance that transforms any IP telephony environment into an active recording solution.

In Conclusion

With NICE's unified-software-only approach to VoIP recording that introduces next generation active recording solutions, along with the most advanced applications for quality monitoring, liability and interactions analytics, the contact center and branch of today and of the future can expand advanced capabilities to all branches and remote locations, enable enterprise connectivity and mobility and improves overall business performance. The result is increased productivity, seamless business continuity, mission-critical reliability and IT investment protection.

The impact of MiFID on Voice systems (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive)

Wednesday, 8th February 2006

The Investment Services Directive (ISD) has been the most significant European Union legislation for the financial markets since it was implemented in 1995. It is now being completely replaced by MiFID1 which extends the coverage of the current ISD regime and introduces new and more extensive requirements to which firms will have to adapt, in particular in relation to their conduct of business and internal organisation.

MiFID is a major part of the European Union’s Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP), which is designed to create a single market in financial services. MiFID comprises two levels of European legislation. ‘Level 1’, the Directive itself, was adopted in April 2004. In several areas, however, it makes provision for its requirements to be supplemented by ‘technical implementing measures’, so-called ‘Level 2’ legislation. The Commission’s proposed Level 2 measures, developed on the basis of advice provided by the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) last year, are the subject of continuing negotiation at European level in the European Securities Committee, however certain directives are certain.

In general, MiFID will cover most if not all firms currently subject to the ISD, plus some that currently are not. It will include: 

• Investment banks
• Portfolio managers
• Stockbrokers and broker dealers
• Corporate finance firms
• Futures and options firms
• some commodities firms.

In some other areas, the position for firms will be less clear-cut. Retail banks and building societies will be subject to MiFID for some parts of their business – for example, the sale of securities, or investment products which contain securities.

In examining how ready investment firms are to overcome the technology hurdles imposed by MiFID the following became clear.

• 80% of respondents said that their organisation either doesn't have a MiFID compliance framework in place or if it did, they didn't know about it;
• 44% of respondents are budgeting for MiFID technology projects in 2006;
• 60% of firms state that they have assigned full-time staff to work on developing a MiFID compliance framework;
• More than 60% of the respondents did not know how they were going to tackle the pre- and post-trade data publishing obligations under MiFID Articles 27 and 28.

MiFID was due to come into force in April 2006 but last year the European Commission announced that implementation would be delayed by a year to give firms a better chance of complying. The deadline is 1 November 2007 - at the moment. But some industry watchers are expecting that to slide back again.

Firms will have to be able to prove 'best execution' on deals - which is likely to have to take into account issues such as price, venue, cost and speed. And they will have to keep records for five years.

How will this affect the IT/Voice departments?

The voice part of this record keeping process will fall mainly on the Voice logging/recording systems, which may need to be upgraded to include an on-line or remote storage facility, capable of keeping trading records for one year, the implementation of which, may need to be completed by November 2007.