Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, RHB has opted for 72 positions of the Mach 3D turrets and Mitsubishi Securities (HK), the Hong Kong subsidiary of the Japanese broker, has signed on for 23 of the voice-trading systems from the subsidiary of France Telecom, say Etrali officials. Previously, RHB had installed BT's pV model turrets, confirm BT and banking officials.

RHB began installing the new turrets on July 25 and completed the deployment on Aug. 1, confirm RHB officials. The Mitsubishi Securities installation will start this week, say officials at Etrali. Vendor officials add that user training is done prior to the migration and takes approximately 15 minutes for a group of one to five people.

Both clients will be provided with the Etradeal Version 35 switches, which can be expanded to support up to 250 positions, say officials. In addition, Mitsubishi and RHB have chosen time division multiplexing (TDM) connectivity for their dealing rooms.

James Daniels, a Hong Kong-based sales and operations manager for Etrali in Asia-Pacific, says that both deployments can exploit either TDM connectivity or IP-based links.

"It is the client's choice. They can also be changed to IP with their current configuration without changing the positions. Each system can have a mix of IP and TDM positions," Daniels says.

The IP support opens up possibilities for voice over IP (VoIP). "The Mach 3D terminals from Etrali are fully TDM and VoIP compatible," says Ahmad Tifla Abd Latif, senior vice president, deputy treasurer, treasury division at RHB Bank Berhad. "This means that we are ready for any future VoIP effects without having to change or upgrade our existing Etrali terminals," Latif says.

RHB officials have also signed up for Etrali's Replay via turret function, say Etrali officials. This option allows users to screen through 40 of the last calls and replay them on the turrets or forward the recording to an external line, creating a conference that includes the bank's clients, the recording and the trader. The Replay option is intended to help settle disputes quickly between bank clients and traders.

"With Mitsubishi Securities, we approached them in April because Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (BTM) in Hong Kong was already using our systems and services since April 2002," Daniels says. BTM traders have been using Mach 2 and could serve as references for the Hong Kong traders, he says. "We approached RHB via our local partner about a year ago," he adds.

Officials at Mitsubishi Securities declined to comment because of ongoing merger discussions between Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group and UFJ Holdings. The merger is likely to result in a firm with assets greater than that of Citigroup (DWT, July 4).

The RHB installation is the first for Etrali and they are in discussions with other branches while the Mitsubishi Group-affiliated clients include BTM in Jakarta using 20 turrets, BTM in Hong Kong with 35 positions and BTM in New York with 48 positions, say officials at Etrali.

Rahul Jhaveri