LeapRate has learned that AFX Group’s FX prime brokerage unit Quantic Prime formally launched on November 1, 2017, with website quantic-prime.com now online.
Quantic Prime is the institutional arm of AFX Group and a joint venture between the AFX and iBanFirst, an expert in banking and physical FX payments licensed by the Bank of Belgium as a Payment Institution. Quantic Prime will focus on finding the best FX execution setup for each customer by leveraging high-quality technology, broad credit access to market through top-tier Prime Brokerages (PB) and a team with a wealth of experience in FX trading.
Paolo Broccardo, AFX Group stated:
The AFX Group has a unique position in the industry running both asset management and brokerage businesses. Opening an institutional agency desk was the next natural step to improve our services by lowering fees to our investors and improving services to our trading clients. The project required resources from multiple departments and was a great experience to complement our teams know how. The project required the firm to increase its share capital which made us a stronger counterparty but also allowed us to expand our sales team by doing senior hires. In a few weeks since go live, we have already seen some positive effects across the firm now that we are onboarding banks, CTAs & hedge fund as customers. This new division allows us to cater to a more professional and institutional customer base and help us strengthen our level of service to a broader client range. This project further demonstrates the AFX Group commitment to delivering products and services of exceptional standards to its clients.
Quantic Prime is partnering with trading solutions provider SmartTrade Technologies and iBanFirst to deliver its solution to the professional and institutional market. Francois Nembrini, Director for the project said:
After a thorough RFP process, we settled on one of the best combinations in both IT and Clearing in my view. SmartTrade has both extensive connectivity options & flexible order routing workflows and we have also been accepted by one of the largest PB’s with some of best credit lines in the industry. The combination offers powerful access to counterparties from both an IT and clearing perspective allowing our clients to get the most efficient liquidity setup required for their trading needs. Access to the best execution of their trades is the first step in our strategy. In Q1, Quantic Prime will offer pricing at a cost to the Prime of Prime market while focusing on the launch of a hedge fund hotel structure. Our brokerage solutions will allow us to keep costs low which will benefit AFX Group’s Quantic AM Labs, the incubation program we work with and will allow us to work with larger hedge funds. We have already designed sentiment indicators which we are offering to our hedge fund clients and will look to beef up our capital intro program as well.
David Vincent, CEO of SmartTrade Technologies:
SmartTrade originally catered its services to large banking institutions, but over the last few years, we have seen more traction from high-tech driven companies such as Quantic wanting to differentiate their customer offering. We are pleased to accompany Quantic Prime’s team on their project and to be working with their highly experienced traders. We are confident that they will fully leverage our sophisticated solution to better serve their customers.
Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier, CEO of iBanFirst:
We are extremely happy to partner with Quantic Prime. We know that Francois is building the best hedge fund execution platform thanks to its unique knowledge of the FX market.
Arnaud Clerisse, Quantic Prime
Following the hire of Lisa Murphy as division COO in July, which was exclusively reported at LeapRate, Quantic Prime has further strengthened its team by recently adding Arnaud Clerisse from HSBC. Mr. Clerisse comes with 10 years of experience at HSBC where he focused on helping corporate clients hedge G10 and EM currency exposures through spot, forwards, options and structured products.
Francois Nembrini said of adding Arnaud Clerisse:
Arnaud brings a different skillset to our team. He has expertise in corporate overlay and can provide all the information our clients would require in order to help them decide when more sophisticated products can complement a simple spot position.