DUBAI, NOVEMBER 2010, Leading Middle East and North Africa (MENA) market data and data display provider, DirectFN, has appointed David Hann as Head of Sales for Market Data with responsibility for driving sales of its suite of institutional investment products and data services. Hann is charged with recruiting and spearheading a sales team that will increase DirectFN’s presence in the MENA territories and expand its customer and geographical coverage to the global market place. He is also tasked with ensuring associated support and training services meet and exceed customer expectation. Hann’s appointment is the latest of several high-profile hires that DirectFN has made over the past year, thus demonstrating its commitment and confidence in the potential of its product portfolio.

David Hann has an impressive track record which spans over 20 years of sales and business development achievements won in financial markets throughout the UK, Asia and the US. His previous appointment was as Managing Director for Sales across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) with ACTIV Financial Systems, Inc, a leading provider of market data content and technologies. He has held senior sales positions with a raft of blue chip institutions, including Interactive Data Europe, Moneyline Telerate, and Tullett and Tokyo London. Hann holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and Management from La Roche College, Pittsburgh, USA.

“I’m delighted that a candidate of David’s calibre has decided to join us at DirectFN – this is in itself is an accolade to the company, its products and business potential”, said Kevin Swann, DirectFN’s Head of Market Data. “We are confident that his drive to deliver, his expert knowledge of financial markets and understanding of customers’ data and trading needs will mean excellent results for the company - and its client base.”

“MENA investment returns are forecasted, in the coming years, to outperform returns from developed countries” comments David Hann “The need for high quality and reliable local market data will be imperative to financial institutions throughout the world. DirectFN is the leader in this field and I am excited to be part of the team!”

DirectFN Pro is the only data display available in both English and Arabic; and it is already an important platform in trading rooms throughout MENA Furthermore, the company’s local presence and expertise ensure a low cost of data ownership – the benefits of which are deployed to a growing international client base.

As international demand for emerging market data accelerates, the company is positioning itself as a leading provider of market data and feed products from the Middle East, Africa and Asia to the global market place. DirectFN has enjoyed a fruitful first year with several large contracts currently nearing completion.

Dubai-based data provider DirectFN is targeting institutional investors and trading firms with a new desktop data display and data feeds, in a bid to expand its client base both within and beyond the region.

DirectFN-which shares the same parent company and Sri Lanka-based IT development center as regional vendor and brokerage Mubasher-hired former Tradeweb market data director and Bloomberg veteran Kevin Swann earlier this year to lead its international expansion plans, and to guide the vendor's strategy to target the institutional investment market with a new set of data products.

"Mubasher is an extremely well-known brand over here, and we provide most of the desktop services to retail users across the region, but going forward we are moving into the institutional space with our DirectFN product line," Swann says.

The DirectFN Pro desktop terminal, which entered beta testing with clients at the end of last year, provides real-time content on 600,000 instruments globally, which the vendor either sources directly from exchanges in the Middle East or via a third-party redistribution agreement with Interactive Data for exchanges outside the region and for other OTC contributed data such as FX rates, says Swann, who adds that the vendor plans to continue broadening its content coverage.

"The desktop features are phenomenal, but we now plan to strengthen our coverage of international stock markets, along with other asset classes such as interbank borrowing rates and currencies," he says.

The terminal also incorporates an advanced charting application that offers more than 60 pre-configured technical indicators and allows users to create their own indicators, annotate trend lines and benchmark securities against each other.

In tandem with the development of DirectFN Pro, the vendor also launched a feed in March of consolidated, normalized real-time market data from Middle Eastern and North African exchanges-including the local Dubai Financial Market, Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange and Nasdaq Dubai exchanges, along with other stock exchanges in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Bahrain, Egypt, Karachi, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia-via the vendor's proprietary format.

"We were taking the feeds in for our desktops, so it was a natural extension to provide open access to that data as a feed product, allowing our customers to integrate the data into other proprietary and third-party applications for portfolio and risk management," Swann says.

He says the vendor has already installed both its new terminal and feed products at two unnamed Saudi Arabian bank clients in March, and expects international demand for data from DirectFN to grow as investors' risk appetites recover along with the global economy.

"We have mainly seen regional demand for our data products so far, but I think international demand for Middle Eastern market data will pick up as investors look for emerging market investments that can provide higher returns," he adds.