The Newry headquartered financial software group First Derivatives today unveiled plans to expand its business operations by moving into digital marketing with the launch of its first cloud product – which the company claims could “generate significant recurring revenues”.

First Derivatives, which posted a nine per cent jump in first half revenues for 2014 to £37.5 million, said it has already secured “key pilot customers” for its new Delta marketing cloud product.

The Newry company specialises in developing specialist software and providing consulting services for the capital markets industry, the launch of its first cloud product marks a major new chapter for AIM-listed First Derivatives which was established in 1996 by its chief executive Brian Conlon.

It has grown rapidly in recent years on the strength of its work with many of the top 100 global financial institutions and currently employs nearly 1,000 people worldwide.

The Newry company says the launch of the cloud product - aimed specifically at sales and marketing professionals - demonstrates its ability to find new opportunities outside of the capital markets sector.

According to First Derivatives the cloud product represents the “evolution” of its existing Delta software platform and will use the same core architecture which is currently used for analysis of billions of financial transactions every day.

Mr Conlon said: “While its commercialisation is still at an early stage, we believe it has the potential to generate significant recurring revenues for the group.

“The launch also demonstrates the flexibility of the Delta platform and its ability to take us into new markets where there are exceptionally large volumes of data that require real time analysis. Our technology and experience gives First Derivatives a strong position in this expanding market.”