Looking back at the most intriguing and popular industry news from the past week between 8th and 12th of June on LeapRate.
Global FX broker ATFX released its growth report for the first quarter of 2020 on Thursday. The broker exclusively shared with LeapRate higher revenue earnings for certain product categories. The high trade volumes achieved by ATFX in the first quarter of this year are equal to 41.04% of the volumes achieved across the whole of 2019. Q1 2020 trade volumes increased by 37.03% YoY. The number of total active traders also rose by 62.57%. The results were achieved, in part, due to heightened volatility within global financial markets affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an order on Monday settling charges against Gain Capital UK Limited for violations in supervision and handling of a customer account managed by an unregistered commodity trading advisor. The watchdog ordered Gain UK to pay a $250,000 civil monetary penalty and to disgorge $241,671 for offering services to US retail forex customers without RFED registration as required by the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations.
Liquidity and white label trading solutions provider, CMC Markets launched its new Prime Derivatives platform. The trading system provides institutional and professional partners in Australia with improved access to thousands of single stock CFDs across Australia, the U.S., Europe and Asia. The new platform allows seamless integration with existing systems like an API integration with trading and market data software Iress Pro and ViewPoint.
Swiss-based retail FX and CFDs broker Dukascopy Bank announced the expansion of its arsenal of funding methods available to clients with the addition of Ether (ETH). The new addition is the second 2nd crypto-currency after the bank launched Bitcoin (BTC) in October 2018. The cryptocurrencies can be used to deposit and withdraw funds from a trading account opened as “crypto-fundable”.
GAIN Capital Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: GCAP) reported its operating metrics for May 2020. The US online trading services provider’s retail segment metrics continue to fall but less dramatically than the drops the company reported last month. The OTC trading volume for the retail segment fell to $179.3 billion from $188.1 last month, registering a 4.7% MoM decrease. The numbers are also down by 0.6% compared to May last year.
Online service provider for trading CFDs, Plus500 issued a trading update, reporting persistent heightened levels of market volatility. Plus500 reported continued record levels of customer trading activity in the fluctuating market. The Company’s financial and operational KPIs performances remained strong. Group continued to attract significant numbers of new customers and registering increased levels of activity among existing customers. Plus500 trading platform reported 100,574 new customers since the start of Q2, which is already ahead of expectations for the entire quarter and 21.2% more than the 82,951 new customers added in Q1.
Husam Al Kurdi who recently joined SquaredFinancial as its new Chief Executive Officer sat down with LeapRate for an interview. Having spent two decades working in the financial and banking industry, he has acquired an international reputation for developing and managing sophisticated trading companies. He has been involved with the launch and running of a number of successful financial institutions in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He said that traders main demands in 2020 are access and products.
LMAX Group, the independent operator of institutional execution venues for FX and crypto currency trading, launched a Weekend FX service to enable clients to trade outside of market hours for the first time on institutional grade exchange infrastructure. The Weekend FX service operates from Friday 17:05 EST to Sunday 17:00 EST when the spot FX market is closed. It will be available through FCA regulated broker LMAX Global.
FXCM Group, online FX and CFD trading and cryptocurrencies provider announcing the launch of its UKOilSpot and USOilSpot CFD products. The two new spot oil products represent the current spot price of West Texas Intermediate and Brent Crude. In the days leading up to contract expiration, customers may leave positions open indefinitely and avoid potentially thin liquidity.
San Francisco-based blockchain company Ripple and its CEO Brad Garlinghouse fight fraud charges in court saying the plaintiff has not provided details on the alleged crimes. The lawyers of the company moved on Monday for dismissal with prejudice of three of the fraud charges brought against Ripple and its CEO by the lead plaintiff Bradley Sostack in his complaint for failing to provide details.
TrueFX, a purpose-built OTC market designed for the buy-side announced the addition of UK-based clearing and liquidity provider Sucden Financial as a TrueFX Clearing Member to provide clients with liquidity access on the network. The TrueFX Clearing Member network was launched earlier this year and allows buy-side firms direct liquidity access on TrueFX from leading market makers without an intermediary. Clients can chose between clearing through Jefferies FXPB, the central credit counterparty for TrueFX, or open an account with a TCM and gain access.
US-based IEX Exchange, operated by IEX Group Inc., announced that industry veteran Daniel Ciment joined as chief operational officer from July. Ciment will lead operations and innovation for IEX Exchange at his new position and report to IEX President and Co-Founder Ronan Ryan.
Exchange holding company, Cboe Global Markets, Inc. announced launching new improvements – a new Quote Depletion Protection (QDP) feature that would offer new protective capabilities and increase the efficacy of its Midpoint Discretionary Order (MDO). MDO is introduced by Cboe order type, designed to enable participants to trade more often with maximum price improvement. MDOs allow participants to post displayed or non-displayed liquidity at the National Best Bid or Offer (NBBO) with discretion to execute up to and including the midpoint of the NBBO.
Good news for cTrader’s brokers – they can now connect to Gold-i’s Matrix NETwork to access a wide range of multi-asset liquidity and utilise Gold-i’s advanced liquidity management tools. Through the Gold-i Matrix, everyone using Spotware’s FX and CFDs trading platform can now access a full spectrum of asset classes, including FX, equities and cryptocurrencies.
Singapore Exchange (SGX) published its market statistics for May 2020. The company reported gains in the exchange’s derivatives franchise amid increased portfolio demand in foreign exchange and commodities. Securities daily average value (SDAV) on SGX rose 7% MoM to S$1.51 billion and total securities market turnover value fell 8% MoM to S$27.2 billion from previous month when it was S$29.6 billion. The market turnover value of exchange-traded funds (ETF) dropped 55% MoM to S$302 million.
GAIN Capital Holdings, Inc., a global provider of online trading services, announced that the company’s stockholders voted on Friday to approve the set forth in February merger. As per the agreement, financial services provider INTL FCStone would acquire Gain for $6.00 per share in all-cash transaction, amounting to approximately $236 million in equity value. NTL FCStone has also agreed to make an offer at closing to repurchase GAIN Capital’s $92 million convertible notes due 2022 as part of the transaction.
