Prominent Australian retail FX firm AxiTrader has embarked on an evolutionary period over recent months, after a successful few years as one of the region’s largest companies by volume. In June this year, LeapRate exclusively announced that the company has branched into the institutional FX sector in the form of a soft launch of an institutional liquidity division under the moniker AxiPrime.
The service was initially launched using Hotspot and Integral platforms, with the company looking to bring onboard other ECNs such as Currenex, FlexTrade and OLFA in the coming months. This week signals another development at AxiTrader, in which Phil Horner has gained further seniority in which he is now responsible for marketing as well as the sales team.
Mr. Horner has held senior positions at the company since March 2009, and has been instrumental in many of the company’s recent developments, and with co-founder Quinn Perrott having departed in January this year to be superseded by former FCStone Europe Head of Prime FX Services Alex Mackinnon, Mr. Horner remains a key figure within the company.
Speaking to LeapRate today regarding his new position, Mr. Horner explained “I recently got promoted to look after marketing as we realized how closely aligned the sales and marketing team really need to be in today’s market, for example the time that was spent dictating sales priorities and what is important to the business gives us a clearer mandate for the goals we want to achieve.”
“This close alignment was a no brainer for the business as I have been with AxiTrader since it started basically so I know the business inside and out. What we are looking to achieve is to continue to focus on what has made us successful – our IB and white label partners – whilst trying to increase our direct/traditional business at the same time by offering the best service available” continued Mr. Horner.
Providing an insight into the importance of partners, and how they play a significant part in acquisition and maintenance of a good client base, Mr. Horner views sophisticated methods of interacting with partners to be a key factor in successful sales and marketing: “As a new addition and something we’re really proud of is we recently deployed a custom built IB Portal which we truly believe to be the best product in the market having seen many other providers IB portal. Most either use off the shelf products which lack real transparent information, or are not specific to the FX markets and what partners really need to see. In today’s market the lack of volatility, and the huge competition within especially Australian/Asian market there is a need to create truly great products for customers and partners.”
“We’ve got a lot of other very cool products in the pipeline which we’re really excited about” concluded Mr. Horner.
Australia is well recognized as a first class region in which to conduct business, as well as a gateway to the much coveted Asia Pacific region due to its close proximity and well developed trade partnerships between Australia and Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and China – all regions with extremely high potential for FX companies, and in particular, regions in which the onboarding of clients is conducted primarily via IBs and white label partners. Couple this to Australia’s stable economy, well organized financial markets structure and cast iron regulatory structure which protects consumers highly effectively, and AxiTrader continues to stand itself in good stead for the further developments which Mr. Horner intends to lead.