First Derivatives, the Newry headquartered AIM-listed company, is forecasting a strong financial performance for its full year that will be "comfortably ahead of current consensus forecasts."

In a trading update on Monday, the company which employs more than 1,500 people worldwide, said it has seen positive trading in the six-months to the end of February and now expected full-year revenues to surpass £109.5 million (€137m). It also forecasts earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) of more than £22.1 million (€27.6m).

"We have made strong progress over the course of the past year and are well placed to continue to do so," said chief executive Brian Conlon.

First Derivatives provides trading and risk management software systems and consulting services to the capital markets industry and counts many of the world’s top investment banks, brokers and hedge funds as its customers.

The group said consulting revenue continued to grow strongly in its second half, diriven by a number of new customer wins and high-level contracts.

It also reported demand it its traditional financial services market and said it was making progress with customers for its Kx technology products.

“In consulting our increasing scale and breadth of expertise is enabling us to get involved earlier in the change lifecycle within our clients, leading to deeper and more strategic relationships,” said Mr Conlon.

“In software, our market-leading capability in analysing large volumes of data in real time is increasingly understood and as a result we have experienced an acceleration of contract wins during the past year,” he added.