Business

Financial data firm Vela commits to Belfast 'because of rich talent pool'

NEW York headquartered financial data company Vela Trading Technologies, which has operated in Northern Ireland under various guises for more than a decade, has pledged its future to Belfast by revealing plans to increase its workforce.

And its chief executive Jennifer Nayar said it was the "rich talent pool and calibre of graduates" which ensured it was committing to the city in the longer term.

Until Christmas Vela (www.velatradingtech.com) traded in Belfast as SR Labs, but its genesis was back in 2005 when the original business was Wombat.

It then became known as New York Stock Exchange Technologies, at its height employing around 400 people in Adelaide Street in Belfast.

The company subsequently downsized its payroll significantly, but today employs more than 85 people in the city centre and will increase this to around 100 before the end of the second quarter.

Addressing an audience of business leaders and stakeholders at Vela’s Belfast base, CEO Jen Nayar said: “There are many positive factors that influenced our decision to commit to a permanent presence here in Northern Ireland.

“First and foremost, it was the calibre of graduates coming out of the region’s two universities and other higher-level education institutions such as Belfast Met, as well as the rich talent pool of experienced workers in the ICT and fintech sectors.

"Their knowledge and skill, strong work ethic, and can-do attitude have helped us to remain true to our key values of teamwork, technology excellence, efficiency, focus, integrity, and reliability."

She added: “The region’s cost-competitiveness as a place to do business and location in terms of connectivity to London and the US are also hugely attractive to us, as indeed is Belfast’s superfast broadband connectivity – which is essential for ease of doing business between our international offices.”

Ms Nayar said Vela hopes to continue growing its team in Belfast in the coming years, adding: “The team here is an important part of the Vela international network and pays a crucial role in supporting the work that we do globally to simplify how firms interact with the markets.

“Vela is performing exceptionally well globally, projecting an increase in revenue of 11 per cent in the first quarter of 2017 over the prior quarter. In the first two months of 2017 alone, we've won seven new global clients.

"As demand for our service continues to increase, we will invest in growing our regional teams with the additional knowledge, skills, and capacity that enable us to develop our offering and respond to evolving market requirements internationally.

“We are currently recruiting for a number of senior and middle-level positions in our Belfast office and anticipate creating more roles in the coming years as we continue to expand."

Headquartered in New York City, Vela Trading Technologies is an independent global leader in high performance trading and market data technology and as well as Belfast has a presence in London, Chicago, Pune and Manila.