Banks Join Instant Chat

Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and six other financial institutions have agreed to join a new instant messaging network from Markit and Thomson Reuters Corp to connect disparate messaging systems.

The network, called Markit Collaboration Services, launched on Monday and allows members to chat with one another regardless of the proprietary messaging technology that each firm uses.

This open platform differs Bloomberg LP’s messaging system, which is a closed network only for users of Bloomberg terminals.

Bloomberg messaging is the most popular form of chat on Wall Street, and often cited as one of the reasons banks are willing to pay around $20,000 a year for a subscription to a Bloomberg terminal.

Markit and Thomson Reuters said they hoped their open messaging network will attract banks that want to chat with their clients or other financial institutions but cannot currently do so because they are on different messaging systems.

The other banks that have joined the new network are Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, according to a statement from Markit.

The banks collectively employ more than 1 million people worldwide, though it was not immediately clear how many individuals will use the new Markit service.

David Craig, president of Thomson Reuters’ Financial & Risk division, said one of the challenges facing banks is that their messaging systems do not always talk to one another. “That creates costs and complexity,” he said.

Markit and Thomson Reuters said the messages on the new network are encrypted, and the system does not store them.

Representatives from Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were not immediately available to comment on the new messaging system. Representatives from Barclays, Citi, Credit Suisse and JPMorgan also declined to comment.

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Google Employees May Get Xoom Tablets

Google employees may be getting new tablets, Motorola’s CEO said earlier in the week.

Speaking at a Morgan Stanley conference, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha said it’s clear that his company’s focus on enterprise is paying off in that it is having conversations with companies wishing to buy tens of thousands of tablets. Motorola last week began offering its Xoom tablet, the first to run the Honeycomb version of Android, which was developed specifically for tablet devices.

When asked why those enterprises are choosing to go with an Android tablet rather than Apple’s iPad, Jha joked: “One of them is Google so I think I understand why that is.” Google may be more inclined to buy tablets running its own Android software rather than a device from competitor Apple. Read More…