Growing the iiXnet community of users

The value the iiXnet platform delivers to a given user will be directly related to the number of users in the network, specifically those counterparties with whom they have an existing relationship. The ‘Invitation’ function is used to enable the growth of the user community. This enables users to directly target other market participants with whom they would like to create iiXnet linkages.

How the Invitation Function works
A user who is already a member of the iiXnet will see an "Invite" button at the top of their iiXnet page. Click on this to invite a new member. The system will ask a couple of questions about who the invitation is being sent to, specifically their user type (buyside, sellside or listed company) and their email address.

If the email address already exists, the system will alert the user that this person is already a member. If the invitee is not already a member, the system will send a form email (which the inviting member has the option to add comments to before sending) tailored to the user type (buyside, sellside, listed company) which will take the the user through the iiXnet concept and the sign up process. As there is a different sign up process for each user type, it is important to use the correct invitation for the user type the user is inviting.

One signed up, this new member can now invite others to the network. There is no limit to how many invitations members can send out.

Controlling the integrity of the iiXnet community
Because membership is by invitation only, and because the onus is on existing members to only invite genuine counterparties in their actual roles, the integrity of the user base is dependent upon the integrity of the users themselves. Because there also exists an audit trail of who invited who into the community and what user type they were invited as, any unethical behaviour can be traced back to the source.

We understand the commercial and competitive sensitivity of some of the information that is shared on the iiXnet, and for this reason strict chinese walls exist between user types, with explicit permissioning required to activate certain functions, such as the Research 2.0 library.

We are using a relatively loose and largely user controlled mechanism to grow the network at this stage. This has the benefit of allowing for a rapid increase in value for all users in the early stages as the membership expands. If we observe too much abuse of this trust system, we will introduce more security measures in the sign up process to ensure more accurate user validation and take actions against those members who are actively abusing the trust of the iiXnet community.