Looking back at the most intriguing and popular industry news from the past week between 7th and 11th December on LeapRate.
Global brokerage and financial services firm StoneX Group Inc. (NASDAQ: SNEX), formerly known as INTL FCStone, has announced its financial results for the fiscal year 2020 fourth quarter which ended on 30 September, 2020. The company reported growth in quarterly operating revenue and income and an $81.8 million bargain purchase on the acquisition of GAIN Capital.
Deutsche Börse announced the trading volumes for Eurex and EEX for November 2020. The company saw growth on month-over-month basis across almost all areas. Eurex reported an almost 29% MoM jump in European equity index derivatives contracts turnover with 84.9 million for November 2020, compared to 65.9 million in October. The volumes of European equity index derivatives were 24 million. Overall, November volumes at Eurex stood at 149.5 million, up by 19% MoM compared to 125.9 million for the previous month.
Algorithmic trading software company AlgoTrader announced today its new partnership with UK-based AiX, fully automated OTC desk for aggregating market makers. AiX´s intuitive, artificial intelligence-based trading platform connects traders across markets and provides unprecedented levels of insight and control. The collaboration adds another dimension to AlgoTrader’s institutional-focused offering, enabling institutional clients to benefit from instant and secure inter-trader connectivity and seamless best price and execution for both traditional and digital assets.
Cloud-based FX trading platform for institutional investors BidFX announced that State Street, financial services provider to institutional investors, has made its four FX algorithmic strategies available on the BidFX platform. BidFX clients can now access State Street’s FX Algo Suite directly on the BidFX platform. Each of the four strategies offers a wide range of flexibility on executions suited to client requirements and trading preferences.
Global technology provider First Derivatives announced that Graham Ferguson has informed the Group of his intention to step down as Chief Financial Officer and from the Board, effective 1 January 2021. The Group’s Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Preston, will be appointed Chief Financial Officer and join the Board on that date. Ferguson will continue to work at First Derivatives until 30 June 2021 to ensure a successful transition and to assist with a number of initiatives related to the Group’s growth strategy.
Technology services provider for the global financial markets community Pico, announced it recently closed on a strategic investment with Intel Capital, Intel Corporation’s global investment organization. This new investment completes Pico’s $135M Series C investment round that will be used to further fuel Pico’s global growth and expansion plans.
United Fintech, which launched last month, announced that Erik Nordahl has joined as partner and CTO. United Fintech is planning to acquire and scale up a range of small to medium sized engineering-led fintech companies with a proven capital markets product and partner with banks to help them to access and onboard these innovative fintechs.
International investment firm and brokerage SquaredFinancial has introduced SwapFree trading for its clients who, for religious reasons, cannot accept rolled-over interest on overnight accounts. The new SwapFree trading option ensures that no interest is paid on positions which are open for more than 24 hours. They are often referred to as forex Islamic accounts. SquaredFinancial is offering swap-free trading with no hidden costs or extras, using the same terms as standard accounts.
London-based fintech firm FXCubic announced earlier today its new partnership with multi-asset broker, M4Markets. FXCubic will provide M4Markets with its liquidity aggregation and price management systems. Specifically, M4Markets will benefit from FXCubic’s low latency software for Bridging, Connectivity and Risk Management automation solutions. FXCubic is a fast-growing low latency and high-performance connectivity provider, based in London and Cyprus offering bridging solutions, price aggregation and risk management software to institutional and retail brokers worldwide.
London Stock Exchange Group plc (LSEG) has announced that Balbir Bakhshi will join the Group as Chief Risk Officer and a member of the LSEG Executive Committee. At his new position, Bakhshi will report to reporting to David Schwimmer, CEO. Bakhshi joins the LSEG from Deutsche Bank, where he is currently Group Head of Non-Financial Risk Management. He also serves on the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A. as Chair of Risk Committee. Before that, Bakhshi was Global Head of Operational Risk Management at Credit Suisse and previously held a variety of senior roles at Credit Suisse including UK Investment Banking Chief Risk Officer and Head of Market Risk.
Global brokerage and financial technology company BGC Partners’ subsidiary, GFI Asia Partners Pte. Ltd, announced today that it took a majority stake in a newly founded joint venture company in China, GFIGS Commercial Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd, offering OTC derivatives brokerage service. Guizhou Big Data Capital Service Centre Co., Ltd. is GFI’s partner in the joint venture. Guizhou Big Data Capital a service enterprise whose main business direction is data commercialization and capitalization for both the information and financial services industry.
London Stock Exchange Group plc (LSEG) today announced that Julia Hoggett was appointed as CEO of London Stock Exchange plc, a regulated subsidiary of LSEG. She will take up her new role next year and she will report to Murray Roos, Group Director, Capital Markets, LSEG. To ensure a smooth transition, Denzil Jenkins will continue as interim CEO of London Stock Exchange plc until Hoggett joins the Group.
The Swiss Stock Exchange today announced the launch of Quote on Demand (QOD), a new order book for trading ETFs and ETPs. The service allows institutional investors to settle orders in a bidding process directly with the most important registered liquidity providers in Europe. QOD allows settlement through a central counterparty and offers trading, clearing and settlement with fully automated straight-through processing.
