Hotspot, a leading institutional foreign exchange (FX) market owned and operated by BATS Global Markets (BATS) after purchasing the venue from KCG in Q1 of this year for $365M, today announced plans to offer free gold trading for all Hotspot customers beginning May 1, 2015.
The “Free Gold” promotion, which applies to trading of spot gold and spot silver pairs, will continue through at least year-end 2015, and may be extended into 2016. BATS CEO Chris Concannon said, “Our ‘Free Gold’ offering is consistent with the aggressive pricing promotions BATS has strategically offered customers across our equity and options trading platforms. It’s also a unique way to introduce BATS to Hotspot’s loyal customer base and show the FX trading community how focused we are in growing Hotspot into the global market leader in spot FX trading.”
Bill Goodbody, Senior Vice President, Foreign Exchange at BATS, added, “Hotspot has built its business on great customer service, competitive pricing and award-winning technology. Our ‘Free Gold’ promotion is a great opportunity for us to reward our clients for their long-term commitment to trading on our platform and to welcome new clients as well.”
Hotspot was acquired by BATS in March 2015. Later that month, the company announced plans to launch a London matching engine to target specific currency pairs that are more active in Europe and attract more participation from Asia. It will go live later this year, complementing Hotspot’s New York-based matching engine and giving investors two distinct pools of liquidity to drive price formation globally. Hotspot’s average daily volume in March was $31.5 billion, an increase of nearly 20% from February. Its diverse customer base of more than 220 clients includes banks, market makers, hedge funds and institutions.
In addition to Hotspot, BATS Global Markets operates Europe’s largest stock exchange, the continent’s #1 trade reporting facility for equities, the second-largest U.S. stock market, and the fastest-growing U.S. options market. In March, nearly 39% of all equity trades executed in Europe touched the BATS exchange or trade reporting systems. BATS executed notional volume of $137 billion per day across all of its platforms in March 2015.
For the official release, click here.