Forex Weekly Look Back: IG Group expects doubled revenue in Q4 FY20, Pepperstone expands in Dubai

Looking back at the most intriguing and popular industry news from the past week between 1st and 5th of June on LeapRate.

UK online trading leader IG Group Holdings plc released its trading update for the fourth quarter of its FY20 financial year and its financial year ending 31 May 2020 (FY20), ahead of entering its close period. The broker expects net trading revenue in Q4 FY20 to be record £259 million (Q4 FY19: £117.9 million), with full year net trading revenue anticipated to be approximately £649 million (FY19: £476.9 million).

Cboe Global Markets, Inc. announced the acquisition of New York-based real-time alerts and order flow analysis service provider Trade Alert, LLC. Trade Alert will integrate with Cboe Information Solutions’ comprehensive suite of data solutions, analytics and indices. The solution is designed to optimize customer’s experience throughout the full life cycle of a transaction by providing insights, alpha opportunities, portfolio optimizations and seamless workflows. The addition of Trade Alert will deliver real-time trade data, market information and alerts.

Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX) teamed up with FTSE Russell and Taiwan Index Plus (TIP) Corporation to launch the first futures contract linked to FTSE4Good TIP Taiwan ESG (“F4G TIP TW ESG”) Index. The new ESG index launches on 8 June 2020 and will assist to the ever-growing market need of ESG (environmental, social and governance) investment in Taiwan.

Online FX and CFD broker Pepperstone announced that it has opened a brand new DFSA office in Dubai, strengthening its fintech offering globally. Tarik Chebib, Head of Middle East, commented that the company is entering the Middle East Market with an experienced team. The expansion also marks 10th anniversary of Pepperstone.

UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) barred four Cypriot investment firms from continuing to offer high risk CFDs to UK investors. The companies used unauthorised celebrity endorsements on social media as part of their marketing. The UK watchdog’s orders require the four firms to stop selling CFDs to UK customers, to close existing positions, to return the money to their UK customers and to notify their clients of the FCA’s action. Hoch Capital Ltd (trading as iTrader and tradeATF), Magnum FX (Cyprus) Ltd (trading as ET Finance), Rodeler Ltd (trading as 24option) and F1Markets Ltd (trading as Investous, StrattonMarkets and Europrime) used fake endorsements from celebrities on social media and webpages to attract consumers.

Copenhagen based multi-asset trading and investment specialist Saxo Bank announced signing white label agreements with five banks through an integration with the Nordic data centre and IT infrastructure provider SDC. The technical integration will begin in the second half of 2020 and the solutions are expected to launch for the participating banks’ customers in the first half of 2021. The partnership between Saxo Bank and the five Danish SDC member banks (Sparekassen Vendsyssel, Sparekassen Thy, Middelfart Sparekasse, Frøs Sparekasse and Jutlander Bank) will give the banks’ combined 500,000 clients access to Saxo Bank’s trading and investment solutions.

Forex Weekly Look Back

The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) announced the sale of UDC Finance, its asset finance business in New Zealand, for NZ$762 million to Shinsei Bank Limited. The sale is inline with ANZ’s strategy to simplify its business and follows a review of UDC Finance. The purchase price represents a price-to-book ratio of 1.2x net tangible assets of NZ$637 million as at 31 March 2020. The sale provides ~AUD$439 million[1] (~10bps) of Level 2 Group CET1 capital at settlement. The sale will also release over NZ$2 billion of funding provided by ANZ New Zealand, further strengthening its balance sheet position.

FXSpotStream has released its volume report for the month of May, reporting a slight increase in volumes, compared to April. The company’s Overall Volume in May reached USD$758 billion, up by 1.4% MoM compared to April. The trading volume was a bit disappointing with a 5.48% decline, compared to May last year when it registered $802 billion. And still almost half of the volumes registered in March 2020 when crossed the $1 trillion mark for the first time in any given month since the business was started in 2011.

Banking and financial services holding company BNY Mellon announced its plan to build a high-performance FX pricing and trading engine. The bank is going to partner with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as it continues to enhance its foreign exchange presence in the region.

Liquidity and white label trading solutions provider, CMC Markets Institutional announced an integration of its Direct API with the price distribution and order management platform of eFX trading solutions provider, Celer Technologies.

HANetf Ltd. joined the Swiss Stock Exchange as a new ETF issuer and announced launching equity-themed ETFs to access the Swiss market – including the first medical cannabis ETF on the Swiss Stock Exchange. The ETFs give investors additional opportunities to diversify their portfolios by incorporating promising megatrends as underlyings. The new addition takes the number of ETF providers available at SIX to 26, and the number of ETFs to a record of 1’581.

Tokenise Stock Exchange, a global fully-regulated digital securities exchange, announced that it has extended its partnership with GMEX Technologies Ltd (GMEX), a wholly owned subsidiary of GMEX Group providing multi-asset digital and conventional exchange and post-trade business and technology solutions. The partnership was established back in 2019 and will now deliver a live digital exchange platform to support securities issuance, trading, surveillance, clearing, settlement and custody.

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