Looking back at the most intriguing and popular industry news from the past week between 10th and 14th of August on LeapRate.
CFD trading platform Plus500 announced its interim results for the first half of the financial year 2020 with significant growth. The company also launched a new share buyback program that will run until 28 February 2021. In the heightened volatility and unprecedented market conditions, the Israel-based broker reported a really high performance for the first half ended on 30 June. Plus500 reported $564.2 million in revenue, a whopping 281.2% growth compared to 148.0 for the first half of last year.
Plus500 also became the main sponsor of Polish professional football club Legia Warsaw for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. Legia Warsaw joins Plus500 sponsorship portfolio which already includes Atlético Madrid, BSC Young Boys Football Club and Plus500 Brumbies rugby club. Israel-based online trading broker signed the sponsor agreement today which mandates that Plus500’s logo will be featured on the Legia Warsaw official jersey and training shirts. The broker will also get a series of branding rights as well.
Swissquote’s net profit for H1 2020 more than doubled to CHF 50.4 million. The company reported operating revenues of CHF 162.7 million for the first half of the year, an almost 39% increase with the first half of the previous year when it was CHF 117.2 million. Net revenues reached CHF 160.7 million, 43.2% increased to CHF 112.2 million in the previous year. Net fee & commission income climbed by 82.7% to CHF 83.4 million (CHF 45.6 million for the same period the previous year). Net eForex income rose by 52.2% to CHF 60.0 million (CHF 39.5 million for the same period the previous year). Total net interest income fell by 21.7% to CHF 16.6 million (from CHF 21.2 million). Net trading income amounted to CHF 2.8 million (CHF 10.9 million for same period in 2019).
Online multi-asset trading services provider OANDA announced that it teamed up with FairXchange to provide the firm with independent execution analytics. FairXchange will provide OANDA with access to its Horizon platform, which offers tools and techniques that help users manage and optimise their eFX business. Horizon is designed to facilitate constructive, data-driven dialogue between counterparties, helping them to identify mutually profitable opportunities.
UK online brokerage, IG Group Holdings released its annual financial report for 2020. Financial market volatility has been elevated during the fourth quarter due to the pandemic and the broker has continued to see high levels of client trading activity. The company reported £649.2 million in revenue for 2020, 36.1% up from £476.9 million in 2019. Profit before tax for 2020 reached £295.9 million with 52.3% growth compared to £194.3 million in 2019.
FXCM Pro, the institutional arm of the FXCM Group, LLC, announced its partnership with Devexperts, a software developer for the financial industry, to provide liquidity to its innovative trading platform, DXtrade, released in May 2020. FXCM Pro becomes one of the first major names to onboard onto the trading platform as an institutional liquidity provider. Off-the-shelf trading platforms for forex and CFD brokers provide significant efficiency benefits as brokers are able to be up and running on the platform in a matter of days. However, incumbent platforms are burdened by legacy technology and are reliant upon multiple third-party vendors to ensure operability, increasing operational risk.
Deutsche Börse announced the trading volumes for Eurex and EEX for July 2020. Traded derivatives contracts saw a significant decrease compared to the previous month. Eurex reported a 46.1% drop of European equity index derivatives contracts turnover with 60.3 million for July 2020, compared to 111.8 million in June. The volumes of European equity index derivatives were 17.1 million. Overall, July volumes at Eurex stood at 112.8 million, 41.3% down MoM compared to 192.1 million for the previous month.
International multi-asset broker HotForex has expanded its offering with the launch of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and direct market access (DMA) stocks, exclusive to the company’s MT5 platform. Traders on HotForex can now benefit from CFDs on DMA Stocks and the direct market live pricing. Unlike CFDs on Stocks, which are not directly hedged in the underlying physical market, with CFDs on DMA Stocks, HotForex will allow market participants to view and trade with the live order books of global stocks regulated exchanges.
Derivatives marketplace CME Group announced that Precious Metals market registered record volume of 1.55 million contracts on 11 August. The volumes surpassed the previous record of 1.51 million the company reached on 28 February 2020. Silver futures contracts also reached a record of 397,000 contracts on 11 august as well, beating the previous record of 329,000 set on 7 August 2020.
UK-based execution, clearing and liquidity provider Sucden Financial has become a Principal on the BierbaumPro trading platform, branded as NTpro in Russia. BierbaumPro/NTPro’s clients will be able to benefit from low latency access to Sucden Financial’s customisable liquidity streams. This integration will use servers in LD4 and a new dedicated fast connection to DSP datacentre in Moscow, underlining Sucden Financial’s commitment to the region.
UK fell into recession for the first time since 2009. It was no secret that when the UK’s GDP figures came out on Wednesday morning they would confirm a recession – defined as two consecutive quarters of economic decline – the question was by how much. Although the figure came in slightly ahead of estimates, the 21.7% slump compared with April to June last year is the worst ever. This number also dwarfs many of its European counterparts, with Germany’s decline around half of the UK’s at -10.8% for the same period.
Multi-market trading technology provider TraderEvolution continues to develop its strategic relationships with a new integration with ICE Data Services. The partnership allows TraderEvolution customers to utilize pricing and normalized exchange data from ICE Data Services’ Consolidated Feed. ICE Data Services is part of Intercontinental Exchange. The ICE Consolidated Feed aggregates data from more than 600 sources and offers cost-effective, low latency access to depth-of-market data and multi-asset content to power proprietary and 3rd party applications and desktops across the front, middle and back office.
Fintech Broadridge Financial Solutions reported its results for the fourth quarter and the full financial year 2020 ended 30 June. While the pandemic has badly hurt the financial services sector share price wise, as near-zero interest rates hit margins, Broadridge has held up well. The company reported 4% revenue growth for the financial year with $4,529 million and 12% for the final quarter with $1,362 million.
Interactive Brokers will pay over $38 million penalty to settle charges with regulators. The US SEC announced that it imposed an $11.5 million monetary penalty on Interactive Brokers LLC for repeatedly failing to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for US microcap securities trades it executed on behalf of its customers. The FINRA and the CFTC filed parallel actions against the firm in anti-money laundering violations and Interactive Brokers agreed to pay penalties of $15 million and $11.5 million, respectively, for a total of $38 million in penalties paid to the three agencies.
Social copy-trading solutions and white label provider Pelican Trading announced its partnership with USG UK to its proprietary technology into the broker’s existing suite of trading platforms. Pelican’s broker neutral solution connects users with brokers directly. It integrating trade execution and communication into a central network for traders. Pelican’s mobile app is FCA regulated and available on iOS and Android. It allows broker clients to auto-copy signals, execute trades, chat and analyse performance.
Chinese video-sharing platform TikTok has been in the center of talks recently after US President Donald Trump ordered US companies to stop doing business with it and gave TikTok 45 days’ notice to stop operating in the US unless they are sold. Tech giant Microsoft was the front runner for buying TikTok from its current owner Chinese internet technology company ByteDance. However, tech giant Twitter also expressed interest in buying the video platform’s US operations.
