Tie-up to enable stock trading via handphone, BUSINESS TIMES

Fatimah Hashim
Business Times (Malaysia)
05-06-2000
STOCK trading and banking through handphone can be a reality for Malaysians
in two months if TRYGIN CNLT Sdn Bhd has its way.

The company, to be jointly formed by textile manufacturer CNLT (Far
East) Bhd, Meridian Diversified (M) Sdn Bhd and Leading Edge Systems Ltd
of India, will market the latter's "eVector" mobile enabling platform.

Completely written in Java and built on Enterprise Java Beans
technology, eVector can quickly transfer any commercial back-end operations
over the cellular network using SMS or WAP.

People with mobile phones will be able to do anything possible on the
Internet using their handphones.

Apart from stock trading and banking, other applications include
logistics, supply chain and truck management, shopping, e-mailing or even
finding the best restaurants.

While acknowledging that the "mobile commerce" field is already
crowded with players, Leading Edge's president and chief executive officer
Suresh Rajpal said TRYGIN will have the upper hand.

"The key difference between eVector and some products that are
absolutely on the leading edge on a global basis is that it can mobile
enable anything on the Internet or Intranet without disrupting a company's
existing systems or database," he said.

The system can also "talk" to any mobile equipment such as a
handphone, pager or palmtop computer.

Furthermore, the technology has been tested in the UK on a
stockbroking company and on providing location-dependent services in Finland,
Rajpal added.

In Malaysia, a stockbroking company and several financial institutions
have shown their interest in TRYGIN's services, he said.

"We are doing today what people are talking about for tomorrow," he
added.

Rajpal was in Kuala Lumpur yesterday to sign a memorandum of
understanding with his two local partners.

Leading Edge, CNLT and Meridian Diversified will own 51 per cent, 44
per cent and 5 per cent respectively of TRYGIN.

TRYGIN will have an initial paid-up capital of RM100,000.

It will also offer Net-Creation and Net-Transformation services and a
range of financial application products like Money Manager, e-Trade, Stock
Pro and Metro.

The technology supplied by Leading Edge will be supported by Meridian
Diversified, a software development and implementation company eyeing the
banking and financial market.

Meridian Diversified executive director Mohammed Zuki Abdul Rahman
said "m-commerce" will supplant e-commerce in importance as there are more
than three million mobile phone users in Malaysia and the number is growing
fast.

In comparison, there are only about 800,000 Internet subscribers
today.

Senawang-based CNLT's involvement is not too surprising as chairman
M.M.

Thapar is a well-known industrialist in India. His activities in that
country range from textiles to electronics, paper and aviation.

Thapar said the company's foray into information technology is just
what he was looking for to diversify his activities in South-East Asia.

According to Mr. Goban Arasu of Arthur Andersen Consulting, TRYGIN
needs to have support from all sides if it is to beat existing players
in the m- commerce race.

"Technology is the easiest part. The main problem is getting all
parties - the regulators, telecommunications companies and gateway providers
- to agree on the regulations, processes, viability and security of the
system," he said.



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