Dubai Financial Market selects Avaya IP telephony for secure communications between brokers and the market

Some 20 broker firms, located in DFM, will be connected to the new network, providing IP telephony, unified messaging, call recording and a virtual contact center solution.

The Avaya IP solution replaces DFM's existing traditional telephone system bringing a wide range of benefits and robust security features to its employees and stockbroker clients, such as end-to-end encryption to protect calls and Avaya call recording to meet UAE regulatory requirements.

All telephone conversations conducted over DFM telephone lines are recorded to ensure that DFM can retrieve these calls in the event of any disputes between investors and brokers or other parties. As the Avaya solution uses digital recordings, the storage and monitoring of calls becomes much easier. This means that DFM can easily create multiple sets of recordings and store them in different locations to facilitate any disaster recovery incidents.

Essa Abdulfattah Kazim Director General, DFM, said, "Dubai Financial Market is committed to providing the highest standard of services and tools to its brokers, helping them stay up to date with global financial markets and in permanent touch with their customers. Reliable communications are critical in the fast-moving financial world. The Avaya IP solution not only gives us a powerful communications system upon which we can easily tailor services to meet our broker's needs, but also flexibility and features to enhance productivity levels. This will help brokers to keep in touch with clients even when they are away from their offices, and also provide a better all-round service to DFM investors."

The Avaya solution includes IP phones and an infrastructure to connect the different broker firms that operate at DFM, as well as DFM staff. The flexibility of the new IP-based network also allows DFM to connect new users to the network in a matter of minutes, and to expand the solution easily, even to remote sites.

"DFM has grown rapidly in recent years, and we expect this trend to continue. This puts space at a premium for us, especially in our dealing room," explains Hassan Al Serkal, Information Technology and Compliance Manager, DFM. "The Avaya solution cuts down on the amount of cabling and server space we need, and also allows us to service our off-site clients more efficiently by seamlessly connecting remote office locations to the central network. The new IP technology also gives us much better facilities for call monitoring to meet compliancy requirements."

In the second phase of the project, DFM will deploy an Avaya contact center solution that will be used as a self-service information system for customers, and also create a dedicated virtual contact center for each of the broker firms. DFM is also exploring other innovative solutions for brokers, including the extension of telephony services to PDAs and laptops using Avaya IP Softphones. This would enable brokers to securely access their networks and stay in touch even on the move.

"We are very pleased that DFM has chosen Avaya IP telephony solutions as its communications infrastructure. The financial market in the UAE is going through a very exciting phase of growth at the moment, and we are confident that Avaya solutions will enable DFM's broker community to stay connected and provide them with new, powerful communications to better manage their business," said Nidal Abou-Ltaif, Managing Director, Middle East/North Africa at Avaya.

IP telephony is a software-based technology that uses IP to transmit voice as data, similar to email, over a computer network. More enterprises around the world are rapidly adopting this technology, which helps increasingly distributed and mobile organisations easily and cost-effectively integrate advanced communications applications into a range of business processes.