Wickr, a cyber security start-up, is in talks with banks and major financial services companies including Markit to create an alternative to Bloomberg instant messaging, just as Goldman Sachs tries to create its own Wall Street chat service.
The San Francisco-based company has taken an investment from CME Group, the futures exchange operator, and is working closely with it to create an app that will allow both chat and financial transactions between traders. The app would undercut Bloomberg while creating a more secure service which automatically deletes messages that regulators no longer require financial services to keep, removing the risk of storing information for longer than is necessary.
Nico Sell, Wickr chief executive, said the company wanted to be the “cheapest and the best” for messaging, using encrypted peer-to-peer communications which means Wickr never has access to the content of the emails or chats.
She said the financial services industry could not trust the big technology companies to create a messaging service because their business is data.
Source: Financial Times
