KBC Financial Products (KBC FP) has installed Galapagos - an "evolutionary computing" toolkit from UK software start-up CodeFarm - to refine its trading strategies in the convertibles and equity/credit derivatives markets.
Codefarm says the installation is the first commercial implementation of its toolkit, which enables clients to apply programming techniques inspired by the Darwinian theory to detect problems and use all available computing resources to solve them.
KBC FP says during trials, the toolkit allowed it to easily integrated existing models and quickly optimise new trading strategies with quantifiably better results.
Brian Collings, CIO of KBC FP, Galapagos is now being integrated with a particular pricing model by the firm's quantitative analysts: "It fits well with our current systems to provide 'optimization' on demand and is enabling more sophisticated and comprehensive forecasting."