Forex Weekly Look Back: ActivTrades turnover more than doubles in 2020, IS Prime offers liquidity via Fortex

Looking back at the most intriguing and popular industry news from the past week between 26th and 30th April on LeapRate.

Moscow Exchange Group (MOEX) reported its results for the first quarter of 2021. The Russian market operator announced strong performance in fee income from the Equities and Derivatives Markets as well by the Money Market and Depository & Settlement Services helping the exchange sustain double-digit F&C income growth. MOEX highlighted that net profit rose 15.8% YoY to RUB 6,835.3 million and adjusted net profit increased by 1.6%.

CME Group has recently revealed its financial results for Q1 of 2021, with some numbers beating initial estimates. The report details an operating income of $725 million for the first quarter of the year, with a revenue of $1.3 billion. Compared to Q1 of last year, these figures show a 24% slump in operating income and a significant drop of nearly 18% in revenue. When comparing this quarter’s results to last year’s, however, it is important to note the unusual circumstances in which financial firms such as CME Group found themselves in at the start of 2020, with the global pandemic meaning that trading demand increased significantly and uncharacteristically.

IS Prime has announced it has integrated its liquidity with Fortex’s multi-asset trading platform. The Group will offer its FX, bullion and Index Swap liquidity through Fortex’s platform and solutions as of this month. Fortex Technologies was founded in 1997. The company has a neutral, multi-asset trading platform focused on the FX, equities, and crypto markets. Fortex offers XForce suite, ECN, infrastructure hosting to regional banks, hedge funds, asset managers, broker dealers and professional traders around the globe to enhance liquidity access, improve execution workflows and support sophisticated trading strategies.

The multi-asset enterprise trading technology solutions provider, oneZero,  announced the onboarding of three brand new post-trade Regulatory Vendors to join its already well-established network. These companies will now gain direct access to oneZero’s Data Source analytics. The data source is one of oneZero’s core software offerings, alongside its Hub and Ecosystem.

CySEC – The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission – has announced the establishment of a Temporary Permissions Regime (TPR), which will admit 88 UK-based firms to provide investment services in Cyprus without the need of a physical presence in the country. Under official CySEC directives and policy statements, the new regime will cover UK businesses that wish to provide services exclusively to professional customers and their eligible Cyprus-based counterparties.

Global broker 1Market has announced the launch of its SMART program, fully dedicated to improve and enhance their partners’ Social Media presence, powered by ParagonEX Partners. The Social Media Advancement and Refinement Training (SMART) program focuses on helping brokers improve the Social Media operations of their partners by offering training, advice, creative services and more. The brokers are assisted by a multilingual, dedicated team of professionals and Social Media experts.

CAPEX.com, a global fintech brokerage, is now working closely with MAP FinTech, a regulatory technology provider for the financial service industry to ensure safer and reliable trading for its clients. MAP FinTech is part of financial services consultancy group MAP S.Platis Group. The company maintains experienced teams of financial services compliance experts in the EU.

Provider of retail and institutional trading platforms Devexperts has integrated with liquidity provider GCEX. Brokers using Devexperts platform DXtrade can now access FX, Crypto, and digital assets liquidity from GCEX. The integration allows brokers to use trading technology and a seamless integration to access both FX and Crypto Liquidity. The solution offers Crypto Spot and FX/Crypto CFDs, which can help firms move to a multi asset offering.

Online brokerage ActivTrades has revealed its annual results for 2020 with record turnover and profit, resulting from increased trading volumes from existing users and a surge in new clients. The brokerage reported that 2020 registered the best results ever in its 20 years. Profit before tax reached £21.8 million, which stood at £18.8 million after tax. Turnover more than doubled year on year with a record £46.5 million. ActivTrades’s outlook for the next year looks equally positive with a promising first quarter.

The Polish CFDs and Retail FX brokerage house XTB has announced a rise in revenues of around 33% in the first financial quarter of 2021. The report is welcome news for XTB, following a disheartening end to last year. The preliminary results for Q1 suggest substantial growth in the company’s profitability and activity, as net profit saw a 120% rise to PLN 89.0 million compared to Q4-2020’s PLN 40.5 million.

Fintech company Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. announced its recent collaboration with international RegTech provider FundApps to integrate its order management solution and buy-side portfolio with regulatory compliance technology. The integration comes as an attempt to provide Broadridge clients with a distinctive regulatory compliance solution that works to address management requirements within shareholder disclosures and position limit reporting and classified industry monitoring. The solution will also work to address the removal of operational challenges in clients’ search for alpha.

Forex Weekly Look Back

International mining and digital asset trading network Apifiny has recently announced that US regulator, FINRA, has granted a broker-dealer license to its subsidiary firm, Apifiny Prime. The significant governing recognition means that Apifiny will join Gemini, Coinbase, Circle and eToro as one of the top exchanges on offer. However, it must be noted, however, that this broker-deal license does not permit the company to commence any retail transactions in the US.

Ripple has suggested that it still plans to go public, even while tackling a lawsuit from the SEC. According to SBI Group Chief Yoshitaka Kitao, the blockchains payments firm is currently considering the public listing of its shares once the dispute over XRB has been settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission. SBI is currently the largest exterior shareholder of the crypto-company.

Deutsche Börse and Commerzbank have revealed they have teamed up with fintech 360X to develop new blockchain-based digital marketplaces and ecosystems for existing real asset classes including art and real estate. In this partnership, the three companies will combine their strengths – Deutsche Börse as market infrastructure operator, Commerzbank as partner for the digital banking and 360X’s team of fintech founders. The three companies will work together on digital marketplaces of the future to generate new revenue potential. The first reference transaction for two asset classes is planned for this year.

Six former senior executives of GKFX Financial Services Limited have been arrested in Turkey for allegedly being involved in a $29 million fraud. The allegations against six of the former executives of the Masak-based company claim that they participated in embezzling the money from the company. Local media sources reported that the suspects manipulated the brokerage’s accounting books.

Fintech firm, Gold-i revealed that digital tokens from Bitfinex will be available to its clients via its Crypto Switch 2.0 digital asset liquidity management platform. The Gold-i Crypto Switch 2.0 solution utilises Gold-i’s flagship aggregation, liquidity management and distribution technology to allow access to Crypto liquidity. The platform is Integrated with multiple Crypto Market Makers to enables tight spreads, deep liquidity and low latency. Crypto Switch 2.0 is fully integrated with central settlement and clearing partners and provides fiat and digital asset settlement, regulatory compliance and institutional custody.

Switzerland-based UBS Group revealed that Mike Dargan will join the company’s Executive Board as Chief Digital and Information Officer (CDIO) from 1st May. The new position of CDIO will play a significant role in propelling technological development. The newly established role will replace former Group Chief Operating Officer (GCOO) function. CDIO will be made of the current Group Technology teams and the Group Corporate Services. Business operation will relocate to their respective business functions to provide a seamless experience for clients, with shared Operations remaining with CDIO.

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