Forex Weekly Look Back: StoneX revenue up 1,200%, FXSpotStream appoints Matthew Fic as Americas Head of Sales

Looking back at the most intriguing and popular industry news from the past week between 8th and 12th February on LeapRate.

Global financial markets software firm Genesis was selected by SoneX, formerly known as INTL FCStone, to fully automate and digitise middle office workflows for its equities and fixed income trading business. The financial services industry faces cost and regulatory pressures which has led to consolidation over the years. Genesis has allowed StoneX to achieve operational alpha with middle office application from the Genesis Application Library that meets the growing client demand for productivity tools and improved client services.

Publishing its financial report for the quarter and full year of 2020, Deutsche Börse Group has revealed its net revenue grew by 9% to €3,213.8 million. Five per cent of the growth was said to have resulted from secular growth as forecast. Highlights included an increase in earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation from €1,678.3 million in 2019, to €1,877.3 million in 2020.

IS Prime, part of ISAM Capital Markets, has expanded its institutional sales team with the appointments of Daniel Lewis and Jodie Barrett. Daniel Lewis joins the FCA regulated Prime of Prime from ATFX UK where was he served as a Relationship Manager. Before that, he spent two years as a Corporate Trader at Firma Foreign Exchange. Jodie Barrett joins the team from technology specialist, Pirum.

oneZero, a global provider of multi-asset enterprise trading technology solutions, revealed its new Institutional Hub on Tuesday. Created to provide full trading control to institutional brokers, prime of prime providers and banks, oneZero’s Institutional Hub is a new addition to its comprehensive suite of Hubs designed to solve its audience’s specific requirements. Its suite of Hubs also features the Liquidity Provider Hub and the Retail Broker Hub.

US-based forex and CFDs trading technology provider FDCTech announced that it is acquiring Genesis Financial, a financial services company with fintech-powered Wealth Management and Direct-to-Consumer operations. FDCTech has signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) to acquire hundred percent equity interest in Genesis.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX)has appointed Alejandro Nicolas Aguzin as Chief Executive of HKEX. The appointment will take effect on 24 May 2021 for a term of three years, subject to the approval of the Securities and Futures Commission. Aguzin, subject to such approval, will also become an ex-officio member of the HKEX Board of Directors (the Board).

Global brokerage StoneX, published its financial results for the first quarter of the financial year 2021. The quarter ended on 31 December 2020 and it registered first full trading results after StoneX acquired Gain Capital. The company reported record operating revenue of $380.1 million with 37% jump on yearly basis. The net quarterly income reached $19.5 million, up by 20% year-on-year. Quarter Diluted EPS registered $0.98 per share, ROE of 10.0%.

The fintech led brokerage and investment firm, SquaredFinancial, announced that Ali Rupani has taken up the role of Chief Sales Officer as part of the company’s growth and development of its core team. As former Goldman Sachs London trader, Rupani, ran the bank’s FX Sales operations for MENA and Africa. He has also headed up SquaredFinancials’ Groups Sales Team in Europe. Rupani has over 15 years investment banking experience and has been key to the development of the company following it’s relaunched in May last year.

Online Trading Provider CMC Markets signed a new major partnership for the 2021 and 2022 Sky Super Rugby seasons with New Zealand team the Blues. The two-year sponsorship sees CMC Markets as official online trading partner of the Blues. As part of the partnership with the Super Rugby organisation, the CMC Markets logo will appear on the players’ shorts, as well as other official team apparel and signage at Eden Park.

The multibank FX streaming aggregation and a matching service provider FXSpotStream appointed Matthew Fic as SVP – Americas Head of Sales. Fic brings a wealth of experience with close to 17 years in the industry. He has occupied various roles, most recently Electronic FX Sales Americas (Executive Director) at UBS where he managed a team and oversaw systematic, asset manager & hedge fund client segments. He has also previously worked at FlexTrade as Head of FX Sales North America.

Edgewater Markets, a technology provider offering access to the FX markets globally, announced the re-hiring of Jerry Chan, eFX Manager based in their London office. The announcement follows the expansion of the company’s team inNew York, London, and Mexico City in recent months, enhancing the Edgewater Markets’ technology, sales, and client support staff.

HYCM has recently added Seasonax to its services, a seasonal trading pattern analytics firm, to help their traders more easily identify and analyse seasonal patterns in stocks, commodities, indices, and FX. Traders can now quickly identify trading opportunities and ultimately, make better investment decisions. Seasonax’s seasonality patterns screener identifies upcoming trades with potential returns within individual assets using algorithms.

Deutsche Börse announced the trading volumes for Eurex and EEX for January 2021. The company saw some increases and drops in different sections of the market compared to December 2020. Eurex reported an almost 21% MoM drop in European equity index derivatives contracts turnover with 61.8 million for January 2021, compared to 78 million in December 2020. The volumes of European equity index derivatives were 23.9 million. Overall, January volumes at Eurex stood at 129.5 million, down by 13% MoM compared to 148.9 million for the previous month.

Trade execution technology company Your Bourse announced the release of their portal. The new features on the portal enable brokers to have more control and maximise profitability through customisation of settings and dashboards. Greater control for brokers also allows them better visualisation of FX, CFD, and crypto liquidity management, P/L monitoring, risk management, and regulatory reporting that will benefit MT4/MT5 brokers.

Forex Weekly Look Back

Multi-asset broker Exness will be taking part in the iFEX virtual expo on the 10th and 11th of February as a strategic sponsor. The first financial virtual expo in the MENA region will attract attendees from leading brands in the online trading, fintech, banking, digital assets, blockchain, and payments sphere, in a full-scale, highly immersive virtual conference.

SIX, the financial services company that operates the infrastructure for the Swiss financial centre has recently announced the launch of new ESG indices in the Swiss equity and bond markets. These indices cover the sustainability criteria of environment, social/society and governance. ESG criteria provides information on how companies factor in environmental and social considerations, as well as their approach to working towards sustainable corporate governance.

American payment company Mastercard Inc announced it is planning to offer support for some cryptocurrencies on its network this year. In the original statement on its website, the credit-card giant admitted that whatever our opinion of cryptocurrency is, it is a fact that that is becoming a significant part of the payments field.

Avelacom, the low latency connectivity, IT infrastructure and data solutions provider for global financial markets has deployed a new point-of-presence (PoP) in San Jose, California. The new PoP is located in San Jose data center Equinix SV1. Avelacom has also set up AWS Direct Connect for providing direct access to AWS-based crypto trading platforms, pricing feeds and other critical trading applications through a private network rather than over public internet.

Eventus Systems, Inc., global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance and market risk solutions, today announced that First New York, a multi-asset class investment firm, has deployed the Validus platform to meet its global trade surveillance needs. First New York has begun using the cloud-based version of the platform for futures and will soon leverage Validus to surveil all of its equities and equity options trading activity as well.

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