Telephone services are crucial to London-based investment bank KBC Peel Hunt.

Providing corporate advisory and stockbroking services to more than 120 companies with a market capitalisation of between £150m and £5bn, the company ranks as one of the top stockbrokers in the UK.

‘Voice communication is vital to our business,’ says IT director David Flint. ‘We cannot afford a glitch in the service, whatever the cause. In the market there is a lot of emphasis on data continuity, but they forget about the voice side, which is equally important for many businesses.’

Initially, KBC Peel Hunt sought a business continuity system that would instantaneously and seamlessly recover 100 per cent of its incoming calls and intelligently reroute them to any specified alternative numbers.

‘We realised that further commercial advantage could be obtained by combining a digital voice recording module with a business continuity solution,’ says Flint.

Financial Services Authority regulations demand that all trading floor telephone conversations are recorded for verification and compliance purposes and, in the case of dispute resolution, to provide definitive court evidence.

After evaluation, KBC Peel Hunt decided on a fully-managed solution from GemaTech. ‘The system provided exactly what we needed without the need to change any of our telephone numbers,’ says Flint.

‘In addition, GemaTech is one of the few companies that can locate equipment in a local exchange – that is a big benefit to us in terms of risk reduction.’

KBC Peel Hunt is assured of continuous service because the host system is sited in the local telephone exchange with a data link to the company offices and its disaster recovery site. Independent web access means that in the case of an incident, rerouting incoming calls can be achieved quickly from any remote internet connection.

‘In the past if our link to the exchange went down, we would lose all our phone connectivity,’ says Flint.

‘Now if anything should happen to our building – fire, flood, terrorist attack, or a power outage – our phone connections are preserved and can be instantly diverted or put on automatic voicemail. We do not lose any of those vital calls.’

Even if adverse weather conditions prevent staff from reaching the office, business can carry on as usual with calls easily rerouted to home or mobile phones.