Looking back at the most intriguing and popular industry news from the past week between 11th and 15th January on LeapRate.
Multi-asset class, 24-hour trading platform 24 Exchange announced today the appointment of Julie Ros as Marketing & Business Development Consultant. In the new role, Ros will lead the branding and business development efforts at 24 Exchange. She will use her experience in building a global business as well as the strong relationships she has developed over her long career in the FX industry and especially during the 20 years she spent as Founder & CEO of Profit & Loss.
smartTrade Technologies today announced that UK private and commercial bank Arbuthnot Latham has adopted its white label technology to enable access and provide distribution of financial products more competitively to its clients. smartTrade offers end-to-end electronic trading solutions for FX (including Options), Money Markets, Fixed Income and derivatives. smartTrade LiquidityFX includes aggregation of up to 130 liquidity providers, smart order routing, order management, pricing, risk management and distribution.
The European Commission has approved London Stock Exchange’s $27 billion (£20 billion) acquisition of Refinitiv. The Commission’s investigation discovered a number of concerns about the deal, however those could be addressed by a range of remedies. One of the concerns is the €4.3 billion sale of Borsa Italiana to pan-European exchange Euronext and continued access to its clearing services and other data.
Financial service provider Swissquote revised its expectations for revenue and profit in 2020. The company posted a solid jump in their expectations with total annual pre-tax profit of CHF 105 million on revenues amounting to CHF 315 million. The online trading services provider surpassed its previous expectations for pre-tax profit of CHF 100 million on revenues amounting to CHF 300 million. The jump amounts to 5% more profit than previously anticipated.
Online CFD and forex broker ActivTrades Plc is offering customers a way to kickstart trading in 2021 with zero commission on a wide range of shares, no overnight swap rate charges as well as fractional trading. The brokerage announced it will not charge transaction fees on all the European, UK and US stocks it offers for non-leveraged retail investors nor will there be any swap rate charges for maintaining positions overnight. This provides an opportunity for clients to diversify their portfolios without incurring costs.
Deutsche Börse announced the trading volumes for Eurex and EEX for the full year and December 2020. The company saw mixed performance in December, however it registered growth across almost all areas for the full year. Eurex reported a 10% increase in European equity index derivatives contracts turnover with 1,050.7 million for the full year2020, compared to 953.0 million in 2019. The volumes of European equity index derivatives were 273.8 million. Overall, 2020 volumes at Eurex stood at 1,861.4 million, down by 4% compared to 2019.
The Russian market operator Moscow Exchange Group (MOEX) reported RUB 90.2 trillion in total trading volumes in December, up by 10.8% MoM (RUB 81.4 trillion in November). In December 2020, some sections of the market reported drops, while others had registered increase compared to November. The FX market led with 14.7% MoM growth, followed by the Money Market 14.5% MoM. Derivatives Market was up by 0.8% MoM and Equities and Bonds Market fell by 9.6% MoM.
The FX technology provider Integral announced today that IS Investment, Turkey’s largest investment bank, has extended its use of Integral’s trading technology and MT4 Bridge solutions to expand their products and services. The addition of IS Investment’s CFD products is the latest expansion in a decade-long partnership between the two firms. For the first time it centralizes IS Investment’s leveraged products through one provider.
Provider of multi-asset financial technology solutions oneZero announced hiring Stuart Brock as Head of Institutional Sales, UK and Continental Europe. Brock will be responsible for further building oneZero’s institutional business in the region. He brings extensive institutional experience and industry knowledge from his background in eFX at Kx System, RBS Markets and FlexTrade.
The internationally licensed investment firm JFD Group has added a cost-efficient product line to its MetaTrader 5-based multi-asset offering. The firm’s European clients will be able to trade six iShares exchange-traded funds without paying a commission. The selected ETFs are listed on stock exchanges in Germany (XETRA), USA (NYSE Arca) and UK (XLON).
London-based information provider IHS Markit (NYSE: INFO) has announced that it has acquired compliance technology provider Cappitech. The move aims to expand IHS Markit’s suite of global, multi-asset class transaction regulatory reporting offerings to the financial industry. Privately held Israeli company Cappitech provides regulatory reporting, best execution analysis and business intelligence solutions, which allow its customers to efficiently comply with transaction reporting regulations across multiple jurisdictions in one place.
PrimeXM has released its trading volumes for December. The broker registered a total of $866.46 billion in monthly trading volume in December across the 3 major Data Center locations, representing a 5.71% MoM decrease in trading activities. The Average Daily Volume (ADV) in December reached $39.38 billion. 21st December was the highest daily trading volume of the month with a $56.26 billion turnovers. The total trades registered in December was 25.17 million.
Euronext, the pan-European exchange in the Eurozone, released its trading volumes for December 2020. The total cash market reached €56.6 million in December 2020, 24.2% MoM decrease compared to €74.7 million in November 2020. ADV cash market reached €2.57 million in December, down by 27.7% MoM compared to November. Euronext FX, formerly FastMatch, registered $437 billion volume (down 3.4% MoM from November’s $452 billion), considering the 22 trading days last month.
