Saxo Bank enters the Prime Brokerage business LeapRate

January 16, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

Saxo Bank enters the Prime Brokerage business

Saxo Prime will offer institutions direct market access to liquidity providers. Saxo Bank, one of the world's largest retail FX firms (and a member of LeapRate's Approved List of global FX brokerages), has announced its entry into the institutional FX Prime Brokerage business, with the launch of Saxo Prime. Saxo Bank has outsourced software from MarketFactory, specifically MarketFactory's…

January 16, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

The NFA, FXDD, GFT and "excess capital" – the real story

A no-warnings, overnight interpretation decision by the NFA led to some scrambling by otherwise well-capitalized FX brokers. As several other blogs noted over the past two days, the CFTC's monthly data for November on the capitalization of regulated U.S. retail FX dealers showed negative "Excess Net Capital" for two FX brokers, FXDD (minus $3.7 million) and…

January 16, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

New Australian FX firm IFM gets ASIC license

Focus to be on assisted and automated trading for retail clients. Australia's financial regulator ASIC has granted a license to newly-formed FX and CFDs brokerage Intelligent Financial Markets (or "IFM"). IFM is beginning operations this month as an ECN / STP broker, with a focus on assisted trading and expert-driven automated trading, all using its own…

January 15, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

FXCM December volumes down 15%

For the year, FXCM retail FX volumes down 5% from 2011. Leading retail FX firm FXCM, the world's largest online FX broker, announced its December trading activity levels, with retail volumes down 16% from November coming in at $257 billion for the month, and institutional volumes down 11% to $80 billion. For the full 2012 year, FXCM saw retail…

January 15, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

IG Group reports 44% UK and 37% Australia market share

IG Group first half results down, but doing much better than others in a quiet market. UK-based spreadbetting company IG Group released more details of its first half 2013 results (for the six months ended Nov 30, 2012), with not many surprises over what they had already reported in an interim report several weeks ago.…

January 15, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

Saxo Bank reports 10% of website visitors are mobile

Saxo Bank launches mobile version of the main commercial website. Saxo Bank, one of the world's largest retail FX firms (and a member of LeapRate's Approved List of global FX brokerages), has just released a new mobile-optimized version of its main website, m.saxobank.com. Saxo Bank reports that about 10% of visitors to its website now…

January 15, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

ICAP sells 12% stake in Traiana to banks

Move is likely meant to repair / improve ICAP and EBS's relationship with key FX liquidity banks. As we have written before, ICAP and its Forex ECN unit EBS have taken steps to repair relations with large global banks that provide FX liquidity at EBS, after complaints by such banks that high frequency traders had…

January 14, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

ICAP's EBS hires Integral founder as its new CTO

Dr. Viral Tolat co-founded Integral 20 years ago and was with Integral since. EBS management is taking some serious steps to try and keep up with rising rival FXall, and its parent company Thomson Reuters, in the Forex ECN business. ICAP's EBS unit has announced that is has hired Dr. Viral Tolat as its new CTO.…

January 14, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

Oanda beefs up senior management team

Oanda's new CMO comes from outside the FX industry. Oanda, one of the world's leading online FX firms, announced the addition of two new outside hires to its senior management team. Oanda has been rebuilding its management ranks since K Duker took over as CEO last May from Oanda founder Michael Stumm. Oanda also saw…

January 14, 2013 BY Gerald Segal

Another blow to the spot FX business in the U.S.

Is CME Group lobbying responsible for the NFA's new anti-spot FX rule? As reported by leading MT4 bridge provider CMAP LLC, a recently implemented NFA rule change forces U.S.-regulated FCMs (Futures Commission Merchants) to maintain equity capital of at least $20 million if they offer spot FX. The NFA's previous rules stated that only FCMs / RFEDs which…