(January 9 – 10:20 ET) – Spectra Securities Software has signed a letter of intent with Cambridge Technology Partners to give Spectra licence rights to OatsTalk.

This product will enable securities firms to meet the new market surveillance guidelines adopted by the National Association of Securities Dealers.

Under terms of the arrangement, Spectra will market and support Spectra OatsTalk as part of its Wealthware product suite to the broker-dealer community. The new product addresses the new NASD requirement for its member firms to record and report all “events” during the lifecycle of a brokerage order for Nasdaq securities to the Order Audit Trail System, commonly known as “OATS.”

“With the NASD’s strict reporting requirements, members cannot simply rely on their clearing firms or service bureaus for compliance with NASD reporting because they may not provide all of the reporting and record keeping that individual firms require,” said John McLeod, Spectra’s president and CEO.

“The unique aspect of the OatsTalk system is that it manages the flow of information while supporting the audit process, and is not simply a transmission of information.”

Spectra will be offering OatsTalk on an application service provider basis, hosted over the Internet. Customers can subscribe to the service on a monthly basis, avoiding large up-front costs. Cambridge has enabled OatsTalk to work in an ASP environment, as well as a traditional, client-hosted one.

The next phase of the project is to integrate OatsTalk into Spectra Equities, which is part of Spectra’s web and wireless order management system. This will provide securities firms, correspondents and clearing firms with a new technology to support trading by advisors and investors.

“Most of the systems offered today are based solely on the discount brokerage model but Spectra’s new offering supports advisors and investors doing business together across multiple channels, from discount to full-service. We offer full audit trails, compliance checking, licensing, correspondent billing and complete order management,” said McLeod.