ChartIQ Connects to the Bloomberg Terminal Connect API

ChartIQ, developer of desktop integration platform Finsemble, can now communicate and share information with the Bloomberg Terminal.

Through the Bloomberg Terminal Connect API, Finsemble users who also use a Bloomberg Terminal can now interoperate between various applications in the Finsemble environment and the ubiquitous data workstation. In a trader’s blotter, users can now push information to a Bloomberg security worksheet, and data can travel from the Bloomberg panel in Finsemble to other components running in the container.  

“The idea is that the user or app developer building a web application inside of Finsemble doesn’t have to think or care about [creating that interoperability]—they communicate with Bloomberg the exact same way they communicate with all other applications inside Finsemble,” says Dan Schleifer, cofounder and CEO of ChartIQ.

ChartIQ, through Finsemble, is one of the major players in the desktop application interoperability space, along with OpenFin and Glue42. Finsemble aims to allow users to create logical connections between applications—meaning they can execute a command on an in-house app and that will automatically be communicated to, for example, other in-house or third-party apps in the Finsemble environment.

“The idea behind Finsemble is to connect all of the applications that our customers use into an intelligent workspace and workflows. You can’t think of the desktop in capital markets without thinking about the Bloomberg Terminal,” Schleifer says. “The ability to connect all of the applications that your users use—be those in-house, third-party; could be a trade blotter or order management system or risk platform—to be able to connect those bi-directionally with Bloomberg is really the center of that constellation of applications that we think of as the ecosystem.”

Terminal Connect, which was introduced in 2014, is a set of APIs that allows customers to create workflow and productivity automation with the Bloomberg Terminal. For the Finsemble connection, ChartIQ wrote a piece of .NET software that connects to the Terminal Connect API. 

Mike King, global product manager for Bloomberg Terminal Connect, says the service is about increasing productivity and time savings. 

As an example, King points to a recent example of a global broker-dealer using Terminal Connect: The institution’s front office wanted to create more automation around their trade confirmation process. The dealer’s internal order management system (OMS) sits on the trader’s or salesperson’s desktop. Right next to the internal OMS, it is using Bloomberg tools for various aspects of that trade confirmation process. To create a streamlined workflow, the firm tapped into Terminal Connect to reduce the operational risks stemming from manual entry and to speed up transaction processing time to handle increased volume more comfortably.

“They decided to leverage Terminal Connect to reduce the manual keystrokes to finish a trade confirm, by building this automated solution to knock down—depending on a person’s speed—one to three minutes of time savings per transaction,” King says. “Time is money, and if they can also reduce the operational risk of mistyping, that’s a huge win.”