The prior week in forex industry land saw some interesting developments. For one… OANDA, the global brokerage known for its reputable operations and innovative tech forward thinking unveiled it is going to introduce financial spread betting, the company stated: “…enabling our clients to benefit from the advantages spread betting offers in conjunction with an increase in leverage of 100:1 across all major currency pairs.” It is noteworthy that this will only involve OANDA’s European operations, coinciding with the spreadbetting news, it was uncovered that OANDA Europe appointed Siddhartha Valluri as director.
Moreover, volatility in markets heated up at the end of last week, sending the USD back on it’s heels against the EURO and YEN while emerging market currencies continued their meltdown. This has traders on nonstop lookout for the next opportunity and it is likely we see higher trading volumes in August compared to July, but just a couple more weeks until those full reports are released. The interest in August trading was confirmed by a CME statistic which showed that forex futures hit all time record open interest highs last week. Check out our featured news and rundown below in the Forex Industry Look Back. What company developments and market shakeups will this week bring?
Forex Industry Rundown for the Week of August 17th, 2015
Features
Q & A with Dukascopy’s #1 forex trade leader
Broker Updates
GWAZY welcomes MCM FX as sponsor of the GWAZY League
Japan’s Hirose FX to change margin requirements for LionFX platform
ThinkForex UK starts accepting clients
Forex Trend closes PAMM-account system
ADS Securities launches CFDs on OREX platform
Forex broker Pepperstone launches redesigned website
eToro furthers integration of Openbook with unveiling of new unified brand and platform
Invast Australia introduces redeveloped website for focus on prime services sector
OANDA goes up against UK giants, adding financial spread betting
Service Provider Offerings
Questrade updates IQ Edge platform with improved charts, social capabilities
Tradeworks adds strategy performance analytics to trading application
TradeSharp algo platform integrates with Tradier’s API
MAP S.Platis reports 15 million transactions to date via their EMIR Reporting system
Institutional Offerings/Services
Goldman Sachs, Barclays alumni join New York Institute of Finance to teach markets course
R.J. O’Brien successfully executes its first LME transactions
Thomson Reuters releases final FXall operational procedures
Financial
Block admission of 1.6 million Optimal Payments’ shares gets effective
GMO-PG enhances partnership with Taiwan’s Neweb Technologies via $1M investment
Playtech shareholders unanimously approve Plus500 deal
KVB Kunlun offers to grant share options to 95 eligible participants
TechFinancials posts revenues of $7.34 million in H1 2015
Saxo Bank posts net loss in H1 2015, but clients’ deposits hit new highs
Indonesia’s Sinar Mas Group acquires 9.9% stake in Saxo Bank
TechFinancials shares drop 25% after Revenues disappoint for first half 2015
Hirose UK sees just £411,000 of Revenue in fiscal 2015, most of that from Binary Options
Volumes
CME forex futures open interest reach record high
Warnings/Fraud Watch
Financial Markets Authority warns of Tilney Asset Management
UK’s FCA warns of clone firm Tilney Asset Management
FCA warns of clone firm Credence Trade
BCSC warns against unauthorized Forex firm Broker Capital
Legal
New Zealand’s FDR: 82% of complaints concern failure to return money
Hong Kong’s SFC received 1,805 licensing applications in April-June quarter
CFTC exempts ASX Clear from registration as a derivatives clearing organization
CFTC orders INTL FCStone to pay a $200K penalty for failure to supervise swaps trading
SEC charges Citigroup for compliance and surveillance failures
Executive Moves
Plus500 UK replaces Yair Lavi as CEO with ex Alpari exec Mark Winton – LeapRate Exclusive
Fidessa names Andy Skelton CFO
Leucadia names John M. Dalton controller, chief accounting officer
DGCX appoints Gaurang Desai as CEO
OANDA Europe appoints Siddhartha Valluri as director
Savaş Divanlıoğlu becomes Head of Saxo Capital Markets Turkey
Brian Ho, Keith Lui secure another term as exec directors at Hong Kong’s SFC
Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin firm BTCS reports $4.6 million net loss in H1 2015
Bitcoin ATM hits the Staten Island Ferry