e-Forex-June-21-HiRes-SCREEN

transforming global foreign exchange markets 

e-FOREX 

e-forex.net JUNE 2021 

Next-Gen Best Execution 

Capital Optimization on the agenda 

Regional perspective on 

Singapore 

Progressive concentration of e-FX services 

Emerging Market FX trading 

Choosing the right partner and digital 

pathways 

Removing the bottlenecks 

Higher performance FX trading 

infrastructures 

Industry Spotlight 

Taking a closer look at the TORA 

and EBS partnership 

Crypto CFDs 

What most brokers got wrong 

COVER INTERVIEW 

INGMAR MATTUS 

Co-Founder of Tickmill Group 

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2 JUNE 2021 e-FOREX

Welcome to 

e-FOREX 

transforming global foreign exchange markets 

June 2021 

Much of this edition is focused on Emerging Markets and our regional 

perspective this month kicks off by focusing on e-FX in Singapore 

which has become one of the world’s fastest growing FX trading 

hubs. The city-state has a great deal going for it including a propitious 

geographical location, pre-and post-Covid economic growth, volatile 

commodities markets and the strength of its regional banking. It 

also has a forward thinking and progressive regulatory authority 

which is very supportive of technology innovation and promoting 

Singapore’s position in the world of FX trading. As a result of all 

these and other factors many of the world’s largest banks have 

committed to supporting the city-state’s capital market development 

and have located their regional e-FX trading infrastructures there. 

This build up of services continues at the same time as Singapore has 

also taken a proactive approach to cryptocurrencies. The authorities 

have been supportive of crypto start-ups and firms experimenting 

with cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. They have also 

introduced the Payment Services Act 2019 (PS Act) which regulates 

intermediaries dealing with certain cryptocurrencies, with a particular 

focus on consumer protection and anti-money laundering. The act 

provides a stable regulatory licensing and operating framework for 

cryptocurrency entities, such as cryptocurrency exchanges. It’s going 

to be interesting to see how Singapore builds on all these initiatives 

over the next few years as it seeks to lead the way in FX Fintech 

development. 

Last month we launched the new FXAlgoNews website at www. 

fxalgonews.com. Subscribers to that publication can also access the 

Algorithmic FX Trading Handbook which provides useful advice and 

information for buyside firms who are looking to adopt and start 

using FX execution algos. Next month we are launching the new 

e-Forex website at www.e-forex.net. For the first time in 20 years 

we will not be asking people to subscribe to this magazine but will 

be making it available for free to anyone who registers with us as 

a member. We hope this will encourage wider engagement with 

the magazine by many readers across the Emerging Markets of the 

world where the next round of e-FX growth is going to occur and 

the benefits of automation and electronic FX trading are going to 

be felt the most. 

Susan Rennie 

Susan.rennie@sjbmedia.net 

Managing Editor 

Charles Jago 

charles.jago@e-forex.net 

Editor (FX & Derivatives) 

Charles Harris 

Charles.harris@sjbmedia.net 

Advertising Manager 

Ben Ezra 

Ben.ezra@sjbmedia.net 

Retail FX Consultant 

Michael Best 

Michael.best@sjbmedia.net 

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David.fielder@sjbmedia.net 

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The entire contents of e-Forex are protected by copyright and all rights are 

reserved. 

As usual we hope you will enjoy reading this edition of the 

magazine. 

Charles Jago Editor 

JUNE 2021 e-FOREX 3

June 2021 

CONTENTS 

MARKET COMMENTARY 

12. Next-Gen Best Execution: Capital Optimization 

Gil Mandelzis outlines why the use and cost of capital has become a 

market-wide issue. 

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT 

16. Taking a closer look at the TORA & EBS partnership 

Earlier this year, TORA announced a collaboration with EBS. We talked with 

Tom Mullooly to learn more about it. 

REGIONAL E-FX PERSPECTIVE 

20. Progressive concentration - The Singapore e-FX growth story 

continues 

Singapore is one of the world’s fastest growing regional FX trading hubs 

and so we explore the continued investment and launch of new electronic 

FX trading services within the city-state. 

Gil Mandelzis 

Capital Optimization 

Dr Jamie Walton 

Siren FX Benchmark 

PRODUCT REVIEW 

32. The Siren FX 4pm benchmark 

Dr Jamie Walton, co-founder of Raidne the independent quantitative FX 

surveillance firm, spoke to e-Forex about its new Siren FX 4pm benchmark. 

THE E-FOREX INTERVIEW 

36.Tickmill - Building a brokerage to become a trusted market leader 

and innovator 

e-Forex speaks with Ingmar Mattus, Co-Founder & Executive Director of the 

Tickmill Group. 

CONTENTS 

Ingmar Mattus 

e-Forex Interview 

Nicholas Pratt 

Emerging Market FX 

SPECIAL REPORT 

44. Improving client access to Emerging Market FX trading - Choosing 

the right partner and digital pathways 

Nicholas Pratt investigates how electronic FX platforms are evolving to 

cater for a broader universe of EM currencies and related instruments and 

transforming how clients access them. 

PLATFORM PROFILE 

50. TickTrade’s AI and Analytics platform 

BROKERAGE OPERATIONS 

54. What most brokers got wrong with their Crypto CFDs. The story 

so far. 

Between 2014 and 2017, the online FX industry had the opportunity to 

corner the market in crypto margin trading, but didn’t. Evgeny Sorokin 

looks into the reasons why that was and what providers can do about it. 

Steve Joseph 

TickTrade’s platform 

Evgeny Sorokin 

Crypto CFDs 

NETWORKS, HOSTING & CONNECTIVITY 

58. Removing opportunity bottlenecks in high performance FX trading. 

We examine the current considerations for security, performance and cost 

that FX market participants must face when they seek to expand their 

trading reach, presence and success and the benefits that a dedicated 

Managed Service Provider can deliver for them. 

COMPANIES IN THIS ISSUE 

B 

Beeks 

Bloomberg 

BNP Paribas 

C 

Capitolis 

Chronicle 

Citi 

CMC Markets 

Cobalt 

D 

Devexperts 

p58 

p22 

p8 

p12 

p6 

IFC 

p10 

p6 

p53 

E 

Euronext FX 

Exclusive Capital 

F 

Fortex 

FXCM 

FXCubic 

FXSpotStream 

I 

IG 

Integral 

p23 

p8 

p8 

p8 

p8 

p9 

p29 

p31 

IPC 

O 

4OTC 

oneZero 

P 

PlugIT 

R 

Raidne 

RBC Investor Services 

OBC 

p6 

IBC 

p35 

p32 

p6 

Refinitiv 

p15 

S 

Singapore Exchange p25 

smartTrade Technologies p5 

Spark Systems p27 

Swift 

p19 

Swissquote 

p7 

T 

Tickmill Group p36 

TickTrade 

p50 

TORA 

p16 


We create future trading technologies 

THE SMART WAY 

TO FOCUS ON 

YOUR GAME 

www.smart-trade.net 


RBC Investor Services launches new 

FX TCA tool 

RBC Investor & Treasury Services 

(RBC I&TS) has launched its FX 

Transaction Cost Analysis (TCA) 

service for Currency Overlay Services 

(COS) clients. The service, which uses 

industry-leading analytical technology 

provided by BestX, will provide RBC 

I&TS COS clients with independent 

FX TCA reporting to oversee and 

assess the execution quality of their 

COS transactions. COS is available 

on a custody or standalone basis, 

as a product within RBC I&TS’ 

overall suite of FX and outsourced 

solutions for asset owners and asset 

managers globally. Mark Hogg, Head 

of Currency Overlay Services at RBC 

I&TS, said, “The partnership with 

BestX demonstrates our ongoing 

commitment to providing marketleading 

client experiences and raising 

the bar on execution transparency. 

It also shows how we continue to 

provide clients with innovative and 

differentiated solutions and help them 

meet their oversight requirements.” 

Mark Hogg 

UOB deploys Chronicle Software’s EFX solution 

NEWS 

Leading Asian bank, United Overseas Bank 

(UOB), has recently announced that it has 

deployed Chronicle Software’s EFX solution 

for its electronic FX pricing and trade 

engine. Through Chronicle’s technology, 

UOB has the ability to take advantage of 

reduced latency via co-location connectivity 

to improve price discovery and to enhance 

pricing capability. In doing so, UOB is 

able to provide customers in ASEAN and 

across its global network access to more 

competitive FX pricing. 

Mr Peter Lawrey, CEO of Chronicle 

Software, said, “We are delighted to 

support UOB in their FX business and 

we look forward to continuing our 

close working relationship with them. 

Chronicle’s EFX solution offers reliability, 

ease of deployment and speed of 

development. We are pleased to be able 

to help UOB deliver their solution to 

market quickly and our recently added 

Singapore office will be able to provide 

strong local support.” 

Peter Lawrey 

Cobalt goes live with 4OTC 

4OTC, the FinTech connectivity 

specialist for FX and digital assets has 

announced that Cobalt, a provider of 

risk and settlement infrastructure for 

FX and digital assets, is using 4OTC’s 

new TicketLounge service to capture 

and normalise post trade data onto a 

single FIX API. TicketLounge is 4OTC’s 

second product launch in only four 

months. In February this year, it was 

announced that Cobalt was also using 

4OTC’s first service, 1API to connect 

with market data in the Digital Asset 

and FX Markets. Darren Coote, CEO 

of Cobalt said, “4OTC provides a 

wealth of experience in both FX and 

Digital Assets. Importantly 4OTC has 

demonstrated on multiple occasions 

the ability to deliver on time and to 

aggressive timelines, making them 

the ideal partner as we expand our 

footprint in FX post-trade while 

providing a market-ready network for 

institutional Digital Asset trading.” 

Darren Coote 


Institutional 

THE INNOVATION 

SAYS FINTECH, 

THE SECURITY 

SAYS SWISS BANK 

Who said you can't have it all? 

Access the best of pricing and technology with the solidity of a Swiss bank! 

From bespoke liquidity on a wide range of asset classes to first-rate banking 

and white-label solutions, all is packed to expand your FX business. 

Partner with the Swiss leader in online banking. 

swissquote.com/institutional 


Exclusive Capital partners with FXCubic and 

Liquidity Connect 

Exclusive Capital has selected two 

new technology partners, FXCubic 

and Liquidity Connect to support its 

new MT5 trading platform. FXCubic 

will provide bridge and aggregation 

solutions, connecting Exclusive Capital’s 

platforms into a single aggregator. Its 

superior technology will enable Exclusive 

Capital to manage their liquidity, 

execution and risk, both seamlessly and 

efficiently. Liquidity Connect will provide 

robust hosting and connectivity, with 

servers in Equinix’s LD4 and NY4 data 

centres and ultra-low latency fibre cross 

connects to Liquidity Providers. George 

Hadjinicodemou, Chief Product Officer 

from Exclusive Capital commented, 

“Following a review of technology 

providers, we selected FXCubic 

because of its bridge functionality and 

the professionalism of the team. In 

particular, we were impressed by the 

added value features such as thematic 

symbol creation and copy trading. Its 

risk monitoring tools such as client risk 

profiling and automations on the Book 

will play a critical role in our overall risk 

management.” 

George Hadjinicodemou 

BNP Paribas launches new algo for BRL markets 

NEWS 

BNP Paribas is expanding its Non- 

Deliverable Forward (NDF) capabilities 

to now include Brazilian Real (BRL). 

This new development comes 

following strong demand from clients 

for BRL currency pairs, highlighting 

the bank’s client-focused approach. 

BNP Paribas continues to grow its local 

market presence in Brazil providing 

the bank with a unique solution by 

tapping into the richest source of 

on-shore liquidity on the Brazilian 

Mercantile & Futures Exchange 

(BM&F). Commenting on the launch 

Asif Razaq, Global Head of Algo 

Execution at BNP Paribas said: 

“This expansion of our NDF 

capabilities into BRL emphasises the 

strong commitment we continue to 

make to digitalise our offering and 

enhance the excellent service we 

provide to our clients. By combining 

BNP Paribas’ years of experience 

trading the BRL market with our 

award-winning algo platform, we have 

re-engineered our algo strategies to fit 

this unique landscape optimising client 

execution.” 

Asif Razaq 

FXCM Pro partners with Fortex 

FXCM has announced that FXCM Pro, 

the institutional arm of the business, is 

partnering with Fortex, a leading multiasset 

trading technology platform. The 

partnership between FXCM Pro and 

Fortex integrates FXCM Pro’s liquidity 

with Fortex’s XForce 2.0 platform. XForce 

2.0 is a multi-asset trading platform 

that packs liquidity aggregation, order 

and risk management, MT4/5 Bridges, 

FIX API, hosting, and multiple trading 

GUI into one valued cloud native SaaS 

offering in NY4/LD4/HK1. Mario Sanchez, 

Managing Director and Global Head of 

FXCM Pro Sales, commented: “FXCM 

Pro’s liquidity management team 

continues to work hard to develop 

partnerships that will enhance execution 

and trading efficiency. Our latest 

partnership with Fortex provides us 

with an additional channel, and we are 

both aligned in our strategy of easing 

connection and offering customized 

trading solutions.” 

Mario Sanchez 


Evolving with the Market 

Added Functionality to Support Algos & Allocations Announced in 2021 

® 

GUI 

Live 

RFS 

Functionality 

Added 

London 

& Tokyo 

Offices Open 

FX|Insights 

Analytics Tool 

Launched 

USD10T 

Supported 

for 2020 

FX Spot 

Streaming 

Only 

FX Fwds, 

Swaps Added 

Streaming 

Precious 

Metals Added 

NDF/NDS, 

PM Swaps 

Added 

Total Reaches 

15 LPs 

Algos & 

Allocations 

Functionality 

Added 

® 

FXSpotStream is a bank owned consortium operating as a market utility, providing the infrastructure that facilitates a multibank API 

and GUI to route trades from clients to Liquidity Providers. FXSpotStream provides a multibank FX streaming and a matching Service 

supporting trading in FX Spot, Forwards, Swaps, NDF/NDS and Precious Metals Spot and Swaps. Clients can access a GUI or single 

API from co-location sites in New York, London and Tokyo and have the ability to communicate with all Liquidity Providing banks 

connected to the FXSpotStream Service. FXSpotStream does not charge brokerage fees to its clients or Liquidity Providing banks. 


CMC Markets Connect to offer 

free, industry wide accredited 

learning program 

The CPD concept is very well 

aligned with the Connect brand in 

our commitment developing and 

maintaining long-term partnerships. It 

provides us with a unique opportunity 

to engage with stakeholders in a new 

format, helping them to expand their 

knowledge of the industry - whilst 

doing so in a quantifiable way. 

NEWS STORY 

James Shanks 

In another industry first, CMC Markets 

Connect has this month announced 

the launch of its Continuous 

Professional Development (CPD) 

program. The initiative is free, open 

to all and allows those in the industry 

to study a range of modules - all of 

which have been formally accredited 

under the globally recognised CPD 

scheme. As a business, CMC Markets 

is determined to share its knowledge 

with the wider FX and CFD industry. 

Moves like this also have the potential 

to help improve understanding of 

this often fast-changing market with 

participants, regardless of whether 

they are current institutional clients of 

CMC Markets or not. To understand 

more about this unique initiative, 

we spoke with Institutional Services 

Manager and education lead, James 

Shanks. 

What is CPD? 

CPD stands for Continuous Professional 

Development. It’s an internationally 

recognised standard that encourages 

professionals to undertake learning 

activities, helping them to develop 

their skills and knowledge. Many 

professional bodies and companies 

alike require that their members or 

employees accrue CPD points over the 

course of a year, typically to allow them 

to maintain professional qualifications 

such as a Chartered Financial Adviser, 

or as one of their internal KPIs. 

Keeping abreast of the latest industry 

intelligence benefits the individual, 

whilst also providing invaluable sharing 

of knowledge internally. 

Why has CMC Markets decided to 

pursue this route? 

The way individuals learn and develop 

has changed significantly. Where 

you previously needed to attend an 

in-person training course, typically 

at a huge expense to you or your 

business, this no longer needs to be 

the case. The wealth of online learning 

resources available provides motivated 

individuals more knowledge than they 

could ever hope to absorb. By putting 

a formal structure around the type of 

educational and thought leadership 

content that is written by the team 

at CMC as part of our everyday 

observations of the market and its 

increasingly complex infrastructure, 

we allow members of the industry 

to stay up to date on key trends and 

updates while also supporting a formal 

qualification. 

What can participants expect to 

learn? 

We have developed a number of 

educational modules covering a range 

of subjects we believe will be of 

value to our institutional customers 

and network. These include topics 

such as ESG investing, the role of 


NEWS STORY 

the blockchain in digital settlement, 

the importance of minimising market 

impact, along with a series of 

interviews with high profile industry 

leaders. 

We don’t expect each module to be 

of relevance to every participant, but 

this provides a solid foundation for us 

to form another tangible bond with 

counterparties. Equally, participants 

aren’t constrained to the content 

produced by CMC Markets Connect, 

as we’re hosting this on a platform 

that is also used by others in the 

financial services industry. 

Why is that important? 

As CMC Markets continues to 

grow its institutional footprint, we 

want to ensure we take a position 

of leadership within the industry. 

Offering free, accredited educational 

content allows us to build a platform 

where we can help promote best 

practice - and in turn, enhance the 

reputation and quality of the market. 

How much content do you have 

available? 

So far, we have created 14 accredited 

modules. Studying each module 

and completing the accompanying 

test correctly will see participants 

awarded between 0.25 and 1.00 CPD 

credits, depending on the expected 

time taken. We will be reviewing the 

existing modules on a regular basis to 

ensure accuracy, as well as adding new 

content over time to make this a go-to 

point of learning for the industry. 

How does this fit with your wider 

CMC Markets Connect growth 

strategy? 

I believe the activity will help us 

deliver against our brand awareness 

ambitions. The CPD concept is 

perfectly aligned with the Connect 

brand in our commitment to 

being a ‘complete partner’ for the 

organisations - and individuals - 

we work with, developing and 

maintaining relationships for the 

long-term. 

The fact that the CPD Hub gives 

professionals from many different 

sectors of finance and indeed other 

industries the opportunity to learn 

not only about their own core areas 

of business but also to expand their 

knowledge into peripheral subjects 

acts as another key differentiator. 

This is after all a fast-moving industry 

and as we have seen with our recent 

evolution into the liquidity provision 

space, one where the CMC Markets 

Connect offering is now of relevance 

to a far wider audience than was the 

case ten or twenty years ago. 

Have you built this in-house? 

No, we have partnered with CPD 

Hub, a specialist content provider 

who has built an entire framework 

and educational repository for 

quality CPD content. This is sourced 

from multiple industry experts who 

collectively cover a wide range of 

topics and categories, so it allows 

us to be part of a far richer learning 

solution, rather than this simply being 

a CMC-centric resource. 

Furthermore, the CPD hub is 

structured to allow participants to 

track their progress from a wide 

range of sources, save learning 

outcomes and check their own 

knowledge, all in one place. 

As the team at CPD Hub put it, 

they are aiming to revolutionise the 

ecosystem for professional learners 

and content creators, focusing on 

turning the creation and consumption 

of learning into a professional 

strength. That ambition, combined 

with the inevitable change we are 

seeing now in the way we work - and 

learn – adds to our conviction that this 

will provide significant value to our 

institutional customers and prospects 

alike. 

How can I find out more? 

Our content is hosted on www. 

cpdhub.co, which is free to use - all 

you need to do is sign up for an 

account. The platform will track your 

ongoing development and generate 

the necessary reports to pass onto 

line managers, HR departments or 

professional bodies as necessary. 

Initiatives such as this are significant 

as they show a genuine desire from 

one of the industry’s biggest players 

to invest back into the sector. The way 

we all work – and learn – seems set to 

evolve quite dramatically off the back 

of the global health pandemic. With 

that in mind, the idea of offering free, 

globally accredited training from an 

organisation such as CMC Markets – 

right alongside other financial industry 

heavyweights – is a truly innovative 

outcome for all involved. 


Next-Gen Best Execution: 

Capital Optimization 

By Gil Mandelzis, Founder & CEO, Capitolis 


Gil Mandelzis 

It is easy to think of best execution in 

simple terms, such as was best price 

hit. But in reality, the subject is much 

more complex and involves market 

impact, signalling risk, and of course 

benchmark. Those are all front office 

metrics, but true best execution takes 

in the total cost of the trade, meaning 

a look across the entire lifecycle. 

Nowhere is the cost of trading more 

critical than in the use of capital, 

especially in the age of Uncleared 

Margin Rules (UMR). 

trading operations and are actually 

seeking to reduce their impact. Starting 

in September 2021, their customers 

will be demanding their help to avoid 

unnecessary costs that have historically 

been off those clients’ agenda. 

With more firms seeking to analyze 

the true cost of trading, they are 

finding that while transaction cost 

analysis (TCA) has improved beyond 

measure in recent years, it still does 

not measure the capital impact of 

trades with certain counterparties. 

It also does it assess settlement and 

counterparty concentration risk. These 

gaps highlight the need for innovative 

thinking and, more importantly, 

innovative solutions to help reduce 

the impact of UMR and preserve vital 

capital for trading businesses. 

While the cost of capital for a trading 

business is the headline in the UMR 

era, another factor is also driving the 

push for efficiency – the authorities’ 

desire for reduced settlement risk 

which is another consumer of valuable 

financial resources. Recently, the 

Bank for International Settlements 

highlighted settlement risk in its recent 

Triennial Survey of FX Turnover. As a 

major consumer of capital, settlement 

risk has therefore risen to prominence 

for firms that use foreign exchange. 

More recently, the Global Foreign 

Exchange Committee (GFXC) 

recommended changes to the 

FX Global Code that make the 

committee’s desire for more to 

be done to reduce settlement risk 

perfectly clear. In its recommended 

language, the GFXC states, “If a 

counterparty’s chosen method 

of settlement prevents a Market 

Participant from reducing its 

Settlement Risk (for example, if a 

counterparty does not participate 

in payment versus payment (PVP) 

arrangements or does not agree to 

Most major banking organizations are 

already in scope of UMR; however, 

from September 2021 many of their 

customers will also be subject to the 

rules. That is when the threshold falls 

to $50 billion as measured by Average 

Aggregate Notional Amount (AANA). 

One year later, even more clients will join 

the party when the threshold is lowered 

again, this time to just $8 billion. 

A large number of banks already 

account for their capital costs in FX 

Figure 1 



managers. Although front office 

performance will likely remain largely 

aligned with the benchmark, a firm 

that uses its capital intelligently is likely 

to attract more assets on the back of 

the resulting few basis points’ worth 

of operational performance. 

For the sell side, capital optimization 

can mean winning more deals. A 

2020 1 White Paper from the Bank for 

International Settlements highlighted 

how liquidity in markets thins out 

towards the end of quarters and 

financial years because the major 

players are concerned about their 

G-SIB (Globally Systemically Important 

Banks) score. 

Figure 2 

use obligation netting), then the to the bank that can really help their 

Market Participant should consider clients utilize their valuable capital 

decreasing its exposure limit to the resources? It is certainly possible as this 

counterparty or creating incentives is one of the few real areas of valueadd 

left to financial institutions in such 

for the counterparty to modify its FX 

settlement methods.” 

a competitive FX environment. 

This is a significant change from the For the buy side firm, capital 

previous language and infers, quite optimization allows them to compete 

strongly, that if a client is not willing more aggressively for investor assets. 

to use PVP or netting arrangements, Investment advisers and allocators 

then firms should trade less with them. are already starting to ask questions 

This presents a tricky conundrum for as part of their due diligence process 

firms, because some of their biggest regarding operational efficiency. 

customers may not have, or be unwilling This can embrace conduct – has the 

to open, access to PVP mechanisms, investment firm signed up to industry 

which can be expensive to utilize. codes of conduct? – but more often 

is about how managers manage their 

DIFFERENTIATION 

regulatory burden. 

All of this means that the future 

relationship between bank and client This may be a relatively nascent 

is going to change (yet again) with change, but peer performance (or 

capital optimization at the center of out-performance) still carries the 

the new relationship. Settlement risk most weight with investors. Buy side 

can be reduced through novations firms that can outperform adviser 

and compression, and every market and allocator benchmarks without 

participant – buy or sell side – will be taking excess risk or creeping into 

very aware of their financial resource markets that undermine the investors’ 

usage. This is a challenge, but also an diversification strategy are more 

opportunity. While competition for attractive than ever. Operational 

business on price alone has failed to performance is becoming a real area 

produce a winner, could success accrue of differentiation for investment 

The BIS paper found that smaller 

banks often stepped up to the plate 

around quarter and year ends, but 

with slightly wider pricing – they have 

the balance sheet, but not the market 

risk appetite. By accessing capital 

optimization services, the buy side 

can broaden its counterparty book 

(thus reducing concentration risk), 

while the sell side can, in the case 

of smaller institutions, leverage their 

strong balance sheet while not taking 

on excessive market risk. Larger banks 

can maintain relationships with their 

customers without attracting higher 

regulatory costs. 

OPPORTUNITY SET 

One of the outcomes of the global 

pandemic has been an increase in 

the use of execution algorithms – as 

observed in the J.P. Morgan 2020 

e-FICC trading Survey, which reported a 

more than doubling of volume executed 

via the technology 2 . This increase 

was driven by circumstances as much 

as by choice, however. As a “new 

normal” was established, the interest in 

algorithmic execution was sustained. 

This represents an opportunity for 

buy and sell side firms to integrate 

capital optimization techniques into 

1 

https://www.bis.org/publ/work836.pdf 

2 

https://www.profit-loss.com/pl-talk-series-morgan-stanley/ JUNE 2021 e-FOREX 13

Next-Gen Best Execution: Capital Optimization 

Compression and novation services 

directly reduce settlement and 

counterparty credit risk by allowing 

market participants to eliminate 

positions via a risk or riskless 

compression, resulting in a cleaner 

book overall and a lower exposure 

to UMR-related costs. These services 

also allow firms to move exposures 

between counterparty institutions, 

thus reducing concentration risk 

through an optimized, risk, and 

cost-efficient allocation across 

counterparties. 


Figure 3 

their execution technology – to go to will incur the lowest capital cost. This 

the next level in terms of assessing input is in the pre-trade process and 

best execution. Some banks offer thus will not impact execution speeds; 

RWA (risk weighted asset) pricing to it will become just another step taken 

their FX customers: however, that is to provide the best possible execution 

in a bilateral environment. The next experience. 

stage is taking the intelligence from 

within the institution and utilizing it to To access this data, for it is all about 

channel trades intelligently. 

data, market participants will need 

to connect to a solution offering 

The smart order router (SOR) has flexible and dynamic compression 

changed the face of trading and and novation services. Trading 

smart capital optimization has as big, opportunities can be fleeting in 

if not bigger, impact. If a ticket is to markets and, while they have a longer 

be executed using an algorithm, then shelf life, the opportunity for capital 

that strategy should be able to send optimization needs to be exploited as 

the trade to the destination where it often as possible. 

For the sell side, capital optimization can mean winning more deals 

Deploying these solutions directly 

benefits the trading business through 

capital efficiency, but also makes that 

firm a more attractive counterparty 

– something that will be reflected in 

improved liquidity. In the past, buy 

side firms have asked their liquidity 

providers if they price to a certain 

platform. In the years ahead, that 

question may very well change to ‘do 

you utilize novation and compression 

services?’ 

CONCLUSION 

The best execution conversation at the 

moment is still largely about hitting 

best bid or offer and minimizing 

market impact. That will never 

change, but going forward, traders 

will demand the most effective use 

of their capital. They will join hedge 

funds, who have long understood 

this concept, and banks who have 

more recently focused on capital 

utilization as treasurers began directly 

allocating capital costs to a single 

desk rather than the entire business. 

From September, a majority of asset 

managers will also have capital 

optimization on their agenda once 

UMR thresholds broaden. That makes 

the use and cost of capital a marketwide 

issue. The focus on financial 

resource optimization is clearly here 

to stay: If you are not already thinking 

long and hard about it, you should be. 


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RE1370648/3-21 


Taking a closer look at the 

TORA & EBS partnership 

e-Forex talks with Tom Mullooly, Head of US Sales at TORA 


Tom Mullooly 

Earlier this year, TORA announced a 

collaboration with EBS, the leading FX 

electronic trading platform provider, 

to provide access to EBS’s FX liquidity 

through TORA’s multi-asset order, 

execution and portfolio management 

system (OEMS). This collaboration 

enables market participants to connect 

directly to their Liquidity Providers 

(LP’s) via EBS from within the TORA 

OEMS. This means that they can now 

view and trade FX side by side with 

all other asset classes, all through a 

single platform. In this Q&A, Tom 

Mullooly, Head of US Sales at TORA 

Trading Services, discusses the new 

partnership, and what it means for 

TORA’s clients. 

Tom, can you tell us the reasons that 

TORA and EBS decided to collaborate, 

and what the partnership offers? 

The partnership was set up to 

expand TORA’s multi asset OEMS 

offering. TORA’s platform already 

offers advanced functionality across 

multiple asset classes that delivers 

clients with leading customized 

order management and execution, 

allocation management, and posttrade 

analytics. 

The system also offers extensive 

automated cross asset pairs trading, 

smart order routing, pre-trade 

risk controls, real-time position 

management, and P&L tracking 

in one single interface. Users are 

able to utilize TORA’s FIX network 

to connect into global cross asset 

trading platforms and brokers 

for greater liquidity access, and 

ultimately improve their trade 

execution quality. 

However, over the last few years 

TORA’s clients have moved away from 

the legacy point to point FX trading 

normally via their prime broker toward 

an aggregator model. By collaborating 

with EBS, TORA’s OEMS can execute 

and monitor trades across hundreds 

of FX providers. EBS was the perfect 

collaboration for TORA as they have 

been the leading global provider of 

primary aggregated FX liquidity since 

inception in 1990. 

TORA was faced with a decision as to 

whether we should create individual 

connections out to the FX endpoints 

and liquidity providers (LPs), or if we 

should team up with a partner that 

had already done that heavy lifting. 

We determined that a partnership was 

the best approach, and we chose to 

work with EBS as the world’s leading 

FX trading platform. 

From a complimentary standpoint, 

it also made a lot of sense to both 

parties. For TORA and our clients, 

we’ve been able to expand our asset 

class offering to include FX. And for 

EBS, the collaboration has allowed 

them to expand from being FX only, 

to now offering all the other asset 

classes that TORA provides - equities, 

fixed income, derivatives. From a PMS 

perspective TORA’s real time GL and 

SWAP financing also hugely benefit 

from a more advanced FX feature set. 

The collaboration brings EBS 

specialisation in FX, and TORA’s multi 

asset OEMS specialisation into one 

system. The two combined together 

offer a very powerful solution. 

What exactly have you integrated into 

TORA as a result of the collaboration? 

TORA’s multi-asset OEMS has directly 

integrated both of EBS’s main liquidity 

pools: EBS Market, which is their 

central limit order book (CLOB) allto-all 

anonymous liquidity pool; and 

EBS Direct, which is their disclosed 

relationship-based bank-to-client 

facilitation of liquidity, offering access 

to 55+ LPs. Both of those liquidity 

pools are now available directly 

through TORA. 

That’s pretty exciting, because TORA 

clients can now see a true top of 

book across those two pools for FX 

spot, forwards, swaps and NDFs, side 

by side with all of the other global 

asset classes and leading functionality 

available in TORA. 



TORA’s multi-asset 

OEMS has directly 

integrated both of EBS’s 

main liquidity pools 

What kind of clients are TORA 

targeting with this partnership, and 

how will they benefit? 

What features and functionality does 

the TORA/ EBS integrated solution 

offer? 

How does the solution interact with 

some of your other advanced trading 

functionalities? 

At TORA, we have clients spanning 

both the sell side and buy side. 

We pride ourselves on being able 

to appeal to smaller hedge funds 

wanting to scale, and also provide 

greater workflow and multi trade 

desk efficiencies for large asset 

managers. So, we really do target 

firms from new startups at the lower 

end of AUM, all the way up to and 

including established hedge funds 

and institutional asset managers that 

have several hundred billion dollars 

under management. 

Anyone who needs a single cross 

asset solution, with an order 

management system, an execution 

management system, and a portfolio 

management system, or any one of 

those component parts, will benefit 

from having the integration between 

TORA and EBS. Basically, if a firm 

needs to trade one asset class or all 

asset classes - TORA is their one stop 

solution. 

TORA’s clients can access a global 

multi-asset, single sign-on solution 

that shows a consolidated, aggregated 

view of cross asset liquidity, accessible 

via our intuitive & customisable UI 

or through our API. Every asset class 

is updated in real time and offers 

advanced trading technology tools. 

TORA’s platform offers advanced 

functionality beyond a standard OMS, 

EMS & PMS. The platform delivers 

pre-trade risk controls, real time 

compliance management, advanced 

algos and TCA tools. 

The integration with EBS offers a 

whole new array of possibilities 

when managing a portfolio with an 

FX component included. If there’s a 

currency exposure that arises from a 

pairs or basket trade for example, that 

can be offset immediately through 

an FX hedge transaction, with clients 

accessing EBS’s FX liquidity pools 

without having to switch between 

platforms to execute trades. 

A good example is our pairs trading 

algorithm, and unlike most other pairs 

algos, TORA is multi asset and multi 

currency. Which can sometimes create 

a hedging issue, so now our clients 

can utilize the EBS relationship to help 

with that. Another added benefit is 

this allows clients to trade FX away 

from the brokers used in the pairs 

trade, which can help with both costs 

and anonymity. It is so simple to use, 

that all our clients need to do is select 

the FX base currency and counterparty 

from our intuitive dashboard. Then 

as the system is filling the orders 

it automatically calculates the live 

FX exposure and creates orders to 

maintain the FX hedge within the 

parameters. 

Why is the new offering of particular 

interest to traders? 

TORA’s all in one solution will make 

workflow much more efficient 

and deliver economies of scale for 


Taking a closer look at the TORA & EBS partnership 


The market is waking up to the fact that traders shouldn’t have to log on to one platform for equities, another for futures and yet another for FX 

smaller firms. Traders can consolidate 

and simplify their workflow by 

standardising fragmented trading 

platforms across multiple asset classes 

into one unified solution. 

The market is waking up to the fact 

that traders shouldn’t have to log on 

to one platform for equities, another 

for futures and yet another for FX. 

It’s inefficient for traders to have all 

these disparate systems, particularly if 

they’re trying to consolidate execution 

and add efficiency via multi asset 

baskets, for example. 

Also, now that many professionals 

are working from home, desktop real 

estate is a real issue. So being able 

to access everything through a single 

platform makes sense not just from a 

trading perspective, but also from a 

compliance, risk, support and even a 

cost saving standpoint. 

Another key aspect of TORA’s 

collaboration with EBS is that it’s of 

value to both sides of the market, not 

just the end users on the buy side, 

but also their LPs. EBS is a market 

leader in terms of FX execution 

analysis and post trade reporting and 

analytics. They do a lot of data mining 

on the interaction between liquidity 

consumers and liquidity providers, and 

they have a team of liquidity managers 

to help facilitate liquidity optimisation. 

This is where execution analytics come 

into play. Traders on the buy side can 

rank their LPs by a range of criteria, 

such as currency pair, time of day, 

size of trade, and so on. Ultimately, 

enabling LPs to gain visibility into 

where their flow is going to better 

understand how it’s being interacted 

with. That kind of intelligence allows 

both sides to feel better about 

the way they trade. Furthermore, 

EBS’s post trade analytics into the 

optimization of FX liquidity are second 

to none. 

Finally, how do clients access the new 

solution? 

For existing TORA clients all they need 

to do is reach out to their dedicated 

professional service manager to add 

FX into their configuration. This will 

usually take a couple of days to add 

an additional asset class. 

For new clients, once the client has 

the necessary agreements in place, we 

start the implementation. There is a 

very simple onboarding process, where 

the client accesses TORA’s cloud based 

solution through a very light desktop 

applet. The client tells us which asset 

classes they trade and which endpoints 

they need, in terms of who their prime 

broker (PB) is and which executing 

brokers and LPs they need to access. We 

then co-ordinate access to FX liquidity 

with EBS, who go through their own 

checks and balances to make sure that 

the client has the necessary agreements 

in place with the relevant PB and LPs. 

The final step is then to incorporate all 

of that into the client’s profile, so that 

anything that’s enabled on the EBS side 

becomes visible within the TORA UI. 

The implementation process is seamless 

between the non-FX assets and the FX 

liquidity delivered through EBS Market 

and EBS Direct. The client is then able 

to see everything in one consolidated 

UI, or to access it all via a single API. 


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Progressive concentration 

The Singapore e-FX growth story 

continues 

REGIONAL e-FX PERSPECTIVE 


The Singapore dollar has been one of 

the fastest growing emerging market 

currencies of the last 20 years. When 

the Bank for International Settlements 

first started tracking foreign exchange 

flows in 1989, the currency only 

traded roughly $2 billion in average 

daily volume. 

Fast forward to the latest triennial 

survey published in 2019, and that 

figure now stands at $119 billion 

- above other emerging market 

currencies such as the Russian rouble, 

the Indian rupee and the Mexican peso. 

Not only has the trading of its currency 

grown, but Singapore as an FX hub 

has also become an important part 

of the market infrastructure across 

the globe. According to the same BIS 

survey, Singapore is now the third 

largest trading area for FX globally, 

behind New York and London. There 

is on average $640 billion per day 

of the $8.3 trillion traded globally in 

Singapore. This is above the likes of 

Japan, which it surged ahead of in 

2013, as well as Hong Kong. 

GROWTH IN E-FX 

The rise in e-FX trading has helped 

cement Singapore’s presence in the 

region, too. 

Trent Beacroft 

Asia has historically had numerous 

trading centers operating in the same 

time zone, including Sydney, Tokyo, 

Hong Kong and Singapore, which has 

been inefficient and costly. Electronic 

trading has changed that, and 

market participants have been able to 

consolidate their trading desks into 

a single location in the Asia-Pacific 

region. 

“Typically, that location will be 

where business conditions are most 

favorable. Many of the world’s major 

banks have always had a presence 

in Singapore. From here they have 

managed their global and regional 

currency risk. It therefore makes sense 

for many of these banks to put their 

e-Pricing engines in Singapore, a place 

where they have a critical mass of 

infrastructure, staff and resources,” 

says Trent Beacroft, CEO of Euronext 

Markets Singapore Pte. 

As well as its geographical location, 

the country has also emerged as a 

major player in commodities trading 

which has aided its growth in FX 

business. 

“Singapore is well positioned in terms 

of geographical location as it is almost 

on the equator. In our time zone, 

we will overlap with Australia, New 

Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Japan and 

India. Singapore sits physically right in 

the middle of all these countries,” says 

Jason Wang, chief operating officer 

at Spark Systems, an e-FX technology 

provider. “Also, Singapore is already 

the commodities trading hub, with 

many exchanges offering POP access. 

The IT backbone and infrastructure 

is also mature and established, with 

many global providers present in 

Singapore,” he adds. 

“...an increasing number of large FX market participants 

look to make Singapore their hub for Asia-Pacific trading in 

2021 and beyond.” 

JUNE 2021 e-FOREX 21

Progressive concentration - The Singapore e-FX growth story continues 


Euronext Markets Singapore 

operates a matching engine locally 

for spot FX, precious metals and 

non – deliverable forwards under an 

MAS- RMO licence, It launched its 

Singapore matching engine in late 

2019 which has contributed to steady 

growth.“Euronext FX has been able to 

attract both major global tier 1 market 

participants as well as local onshore 

names who are now being drawn to 

the third largest global FX center,” 

says Beacroft. “This trend is set to 

continue as an increasing number of 

large FX market participants look to 

make Singapore their hub for Asia- 

Pacific trading in 2021 and beyond. 

To add to this is a strong financial 

regulatory environment which attracts 

market participants,” he adds. 

Ravinder Kaur, Institutional Sales 

Manager at IG Prime, a global 

leader in online trading, trusted by 

institutional clients since 2006 believes 

continued building of matching 

engines in Singapore will also add to 

the growth in e-FX trading. “With 

the rising popularity of a new Forex 

Trading Engine in Singapore, the 

growth will continue to be on an 

upward trend as this would remove a 

lag caused by routing trades through 

London or Tokyo,” she says. 

Jason Wang 

OTHER FACTORS AT PLAY 

There are other factors contributing 

to the rise in e-FX trading in 

Singapore. These include pre-and 

post-Covid economic growth, 

shifting global trade policy, volatile 

commodities markets and the 

strength of regional banking. 

Price latency in the region and the 

potentially fragmented market 

landscape has also encouraged firms 

to centralise activity in one trading 

area. 

“Given the geographically diverse 

and fragmented nature of FX liquidity 

provision, Asia is susceptible to price 

latency. By creating a regional hub for 

price distribution and consumption, 

providers in Singapore are leveraging 

technology to improve execution 

results and performance,” says Tod 

Van Name, global head of foreign 

exchange electronic trading, FXGO 

at Bloomberg. Further, Singapore 

is already a dominant regional 

hub for investment managers and 

corporations. Yet to effectively 

aggregate this demand, regional 

“Singapore is already the commodities trading hub, with 

many exchanges offering POP access. The IT backbone and 

infrastructure is also mature and established,...” 

“By creating a regional hub for price distribution and 

consumption, providers in Singapore are leveraging 

technology to improve execution results and performance.” 

Tod Van Name 

banks and brokers must be enabled 

with the right e-FX trading technology 

and be able to implement the right 

digital frameworks to optimally serve 

customer needs. 

Concurrently, the demand for liquidity 

must be met via effective trading 

infrastructure. Many of the leading 

e-FX market makers have made a 

public commitment to build local 

pricing engine infrastructure in the 

region. This has meant Singapore 

has become an attractive proposition 

for institutions seeking better price 

discovery, execution quality, improved 

latency, and enhanced liquidity in the 

Asia time zone. 

“Platform providers, like Integral, 

can facilitate both areas of the 

proposition. We offer regional 

banks and brokers the full suite of 

sophisticated workflow management 

and advanced trading technology 

needed to compete, including bespoke 

pricing engines, and optimally serve 

their local corporate and institutional 

customers,” says Vikas Srivastava, 

Chief Revenue Officer at Integral. 

“We also operate an ECN and farreaching 

liquidity networks that 

offer local participants seamless 

connectivity to valuable liquidity 

sources. Our trading environment 

ensures the highest level of execution 

quality, and our data science and 

analytic capabilities allow participants 

to demonstrate and prove best 

execution,” he adds. 

LISTED PRODUCTS 

For exchanges like the Singapore 

Exchange (SGX), the growth in e-FX 

trading has been a boon for listed 

products like futures and options. 


NDF TRADING at 

Euronext Markets 

Singapore 

Euronext Markets Singapore is a Regulated Market Operator (RMO) 

enabling the trading of Non-Deliverable Forwards (NDFs): 

• Approved by the Monetary Authority of 

Singapore (MAS) and the US Commodities 

and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as 

a foreign swap trading facility exempt from 

SEF registration requirement. 

• Subsidiary of Euronext FX, the fastest ECN 

globally for Spot FX trading and winner of 

the category Best ECN/MDP for spot in the 

2020 FX Markets e-FX Awards. 

• Helping to add speed and efficiency, as 

well as service the increasing number of 

global market participants moving engines 

to Singapore as Euronext FX is the only ECN 

with matching engine locally in SG1. 

• Giving access to an expanded pool of buy-side 

and sell-side NDF liquidity thanks to its unique 

position in the Asia Pacific region. 

• Allowing USD crosses with multiple month 

tenors including major Asian currencies, 

customized liquidity pools and a full range of 

order types. 

Winner of the category Best ECN in the 

2020 FX Markets Asia Awards. 

Euronext FX has machine engines in London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo. 

It is a company of Euronext, the leading multi-asset and pan-European exchange with markets in Amsterdam, 

Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon, Milan, Oslo and Paris. 

More information: 

www.euronextfx.com 

Contact us: 

sales_FX@euronext.com 

This publication is for information purposes only and is not a recommendation to engage in investment activities. This publication is provided “as is” without representation or warranty of any kind. Whilst all 

reasonable care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the content, Euronext FX Inc. and its affiliates (“Euronext FX”) do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. Neither Euronext FX nor its affiliates will 

be held liable for any loss or damages of any nature ensuing from using, trusting or acting on information provided. No information set out or referred to in this publication shall form the basis of any contract. The 

creation of rights and obligations in respect of financial products that are traded on the Euronext FX ECN (powered by FastMatch technology) or on the exchanges operated by Euronext FX’s affiliates shall depend 

solely on the applicable rules of the market operator. All proprietary rights and interest in or connected with this publication shall vest in Euronext FX. No part of it may be redistributed or reproduced in any form 

without the prior written permission of Euronext FX. 

Affiliates of Euronext FX refers to Euronext N.V. and its affiliates. Information regarding trademarks and intellectual property rights of Euronext FX and its affiliates is located at https://www.euronext.com/terms-use. 

© 2021, Euronext FX Inc. - All rights reserved. 



“We continue to support the FX ecosystem and clients in 

achieving greater capital efficiencies and greater ease in 

managing their portfolios,..” 

and capital requirements, facilitates 

multilateral settlement netting and 

enhances operational efficiencies,” 

says Lam. 

have a more efficient format in terms 

REGULATORY CHANGES 

of initial margin (IM) cost compared 

One of the biggest factors in e-FX 

to cleared NDFs – a cleared FX futures 

growth in Singapore has been 

contract attracts a one-day margin 

the business-friendly environment 

risk compared to five days for cleared 

set up by the Monetary Authority 

NDF,” says Lam. 

of Singapore (MAS). This was set 

out by the MAS’ Financial Services 

But SGX has adopted a policy of 

Industry Transformation Roadmap 

working with the OTC market in order 

which set out to develop Singapore 

to give clients more choice about 

as the global FX price discovery and 

KC Lam 

how they trade these products. By 

working with various FX platforms, 

liquidity centre in the Asian time 

zone to better support regional 

it is now possible for NDF traders to 

market participants. 

view futures in their preferred format, 


As of the end of May 2021, FX 

futures traded at SGX were up 2% 

year-on-year with a notional value of 

US$123.3 billion, while open interest 

in the contracts was up 26.3% to 

172,389 contracts with a notional 

value of US$11.7 billion. 

“We continue to support the FX 

ecosystem and clients in achieving 

greater capital efficiencies and greater 

ease in managing their portfolios, by 

growing, enhancing and diversifying 

which is accelerating adoption. By 

allowing both OTC and listed FX 

trades to be included as part of their 

trading strategy, traders can choose 

to pivot liquidity between different 

venues and realise price efficiencies 

through various distribution channels. 

SGX also introduced FlexC futures 

in 2019 to allow OTC FX traders to 

trade listed FX. Unlike most FX futures 

with fixed expiry dates, FlexC futures 

allow the trading of FX futures on any 

fixing date up to 100 calendar days 

As a spokesperson for the MAS 

notes, there has been a good mix 

of global and regional FX market 

participants, including Electronic 

Communication Networks, global 

banks, non-bank proprietary trading 

firms, custodian banks, as well 

as Singapore’s local banks, have 

established their e-trading engines 

and teams in Singapore. Notably, all 

the top 5 global FX counterparties 

have set up their FX pricing engines 

in Singapore to cater to growing 

our FX offerings including our suite of 

forward, essentially replicating OTC FX 

regional flows. 

full-size and mini FX futures contracts, 

trades on a listed venue. “SGX FlexC 

FX options and FlexC contracts,” says 

FX Futures offers a more effective 

“In the next phase of broadening 

KC Lam, head of rates and FX at SGX. 

way of mitigating counterparty credit 

and deepening the FX ecosystem, 

risk while retaining bilateral trading 

we will continue to encourage more 

The exchange has been touting 

relationships. SGX FlexC FX Futures 

buy-side participants and platforms 

the benefits of its listed products 

brings about lower margin costs 

to set up their pricing engines in 

versus over-the-counter equivalents, 

and believes with global regulatory 

initiatives such as Basel III and MIFID II 

coming into play, financial institutions 

are facing an increasing burden of 

capital requirements. These include 

uncleared margin rules (UMR) and 

the standardized approach for 

counterparty credit risk (SA-CCR) 

under Basel III. 

“Exchange-listed futures offer similar 

netting and clearing benefits, and 

Singapore is well positioned in terms of geographical location 




Singapore. Singapore is a trusted 

and business friendly marketplace, 

leveraging on our strategic location 

with superb connectivity to the 

region. As a key regional hub for 

trade, financing, asset and wealth 

management and risk management, 

Singapore is well-positioned to be a 

leading regional FX centre,” says the 

MAS spokesperson. 

reported round-trip timing savings of 

up to 400 milliseconds by executing 

orders during the Asian time zone in 

Singapore instead of other centres. 

They saw improved trade-fill ratio from 

around 80% to almost 98%. Many 

global banks and market participants 

recognise these commercial benefits 

and have invested in building their 

regional pricing and matching engines 

In the FX trading space, Singaporebased 

start-up for FX options trading, 

Synoption, was one of the first 

graduates of MAS Sandbox Express, 

where it kick-started business as an 

experiment within the sandbox. Upon 

graduation, it has been recognised by 

MAS as a Recognised Market Operator 

to continue operating as an organised 

market. 

setup in Singapore, to provide better 

“Our stable political environment, 

strong rule of law, sound regulations, 

robust infrastructure, as well as the 

high standards in data security and 

confidentiality, are other key elements 

that makes us a trusted FX centre and 

marketplace,” the spokesperson adds. 

pricing and trade execution to their 

clients in the region. The regulator has 

also consulted with major forex players, 

encouraging them to build systems in 

the Southeast Asian nation to reduce 

the latency caused by routing trades 

done by regional market participants to 

other markets. 

“We hope that by incorporating some 

flexibility into our regulatory regime, it 

can spur on new innovations to address 

market needs and keep Singapore’s 

financial sector competitive,” says the 

MAS spokesperson. 

ATTRACTING THE BUY SIDE 


One of the key developments has 

been the low latency associated with 

trades executed out of Singapore 

has greatly reduced orders roundtrip 

timings and trade rejection 

rates, resulting in better pricing and 

improved trade execution for market 

participants. 

According to the MAS, some 

Singapore-based participants that 

have completed the build out of their 

e-trading engines in Singapore have 

A further initiative that has helped 

has been the launch of the FinTech 

Regulatory Sandbox to enable 

financial institutions and FinTech 

players to experiment with innovative 

financial products or services in a live 

environment but within a well-defined 

space and duration. The sandbox will 

also include appropriate safeguards to 

contain the consequences of failure 

and maintain the overall safety and 

soundness of our financial systems. 

Trading e-FX today in Singapore 

encompasses the full gamut of 

products – from spot, to derivatives 

and futures – with liquidity ample in 

all these markets. Given the fertile 

trading ground available, institutional 

players have been busy trying to 

attract clients and the demand 

for using different technologies in 

assisting in e-FX trading is rising. 

“There is a clear acknowledgement 

among buy-side firms that future- 

Singapore is already a dominant regional hub for investment managers and corporations 


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proofing derivatives portfolios and 

managing collateral and liquidity issues 

should remain high on their agendas. As 

more buy-side firms adopt new methods 

such as direct access models, they stand 

to benefit from improved execution 

terms, stronger counterparty credit risk 

management and greater access to 

liquidity in future crisis situations,” says 

Ravinder Kaur at IG Prime. 

Singapore has many different types 

of institutions trading FX, so the 

needs vary. For example, multi-bank 

platforms are popular with corporate 

treasuries because of the need for best 

execution, and credit relationships. 

Single dealer platforms are popular 

with regional bank traders as they 

might have specific needs that only 

single dealers can provide. ECNs have 

proved popular with market-maker 

banks and algorithmic hedge funds. 

A number of regulatory initiatives have 

prompted demand for other products 

that service the buy side, too. The 

FX Global Code, which in part sets 

out how institutions engaging in FX 

should behave, has a total of 75 buy 

side and sell side firms in Singapore 

signed up to it. 

In Singapore, the Singapore Foreign 

Exchange Market Committee 

(“SFEMC”), co-chaired by MAS and an 

industry leader and comprises major 

FX market participants, is responsible 

for developing and recommending 

appropriate industry standards and 

codes, as well as promoting high 

standards of professional conduct and 

competencies in market participants. 

To promote the adoption of the FX 

Global Code, the SFEMC has set up a 

public register where Singapore-based 

market participants can publish their 

Statements of Commitment to the FX 

Global Code. 

These market participants have also 

reviewed their internal processes 

against the principles of the Code and 

taken steps to put the principles to 

practice. Notably, they have updated 

client disclosures to provide greater 

transparency in conducting FX market 

activities such as making clear to 

clients that final prices may include 

mark-ups, and providing an accurate 

and timely record of orders and 

transactions executed. 

“Buy-side clients in Singapore seek 

deep liquidity across a full range 

of instruments, flexible execution 

methods, and comprehensive 

workflows that maximize efficiency 

while reducing risk and transaction 

cost. How that is realized is unique 

to each firm, and one size-fitsall 

strategies rarely work. Clients 

demand best of breed solutions at 

a fair value,” says Tod Van Name at 

Bloomberg. 

KEY OBJECTIVES 

The buy side have several key 

objectives that they are seeking. Firstly, 

they have a duty to meet and prove 

best execution. As a result, they want 

access to a high-quality EMS, and they 

also want connectivity to different 

types of liquidity, ranging from their 

bank relationships to non-bank market 

Ravinder Kaur 

makers. Additionally, they want a 

trading system that can sit seamlessly 

with their existing order lifecycle and 

order management systems. 

“Traders especially appreciate a 

system that makes their lives easier. 

Whether this takes the form of an 

auto-execution system, embedded 

API services, accurate prices, low-cost 

access to trading algos, the right tools 

to analyse and optimise their business 

- including TCA, or simply the ability 

to upload hundreds of orders to net 

and trade all at once,” says Integral’s 

Srivastava. 

Demand for multi-bank, single-dealer 

and ECN platforms in Singapore 

is largely akin to what market 

participants have seen in Europe and 

America, with multi-dealer platforms 

expected to remain the dominant 

trading channel in 2021, according to 

Integral. Srivastava says the important 

aspect for institutions in Singapore - 

and surrounding markets - wanting 

to trade on MDPs is to have the right 

technology in place before stepping 

into the MDP arena. 

“Technology is paramount in this 

competitive environment, where the 

fastest price and tightest spread often 

wins. In this scenario, having the right 

connection to an MDP, sophisticated 

auto-pricing capabilities, risk 

management infrastructure, and the 

tools to price complex orders becomes 

vital,” he says. 

Single-dealer platforms will 

also remain a vital part of the 

infrastructure. “In the last year, 

we have signed multiple deals with 

local banks and brokers seeking 

sophisticated SDP technology in 

“There is a clear acknowledgement among buy-side firms that 

future-proofing derivatives portfolios and managing collateral 

and liquidity issues should remain high on their agendas” 


YOUR GROWTH 

OUR PRIORITY 




Singapore. They recognise the 

necessity to differentiate their offering 

through tailored pricing, customized 

UIs, algorithmic trading, and TCA 

capabilities, to meet the increasingly 

sophisticated needs and expectations 

of their institutional and corporate 

customer base,” says Srivastava. 

Euronext has a similar story to tell. 

“We are seeing strong demand from 

the Institutional client base. Banks and 

LPs are also using us to engage clients 

whom they would normally not have 

direct access to. Our business in the 

Asia region has become much more 

focused on those clients who are 

looking for low latency and efficient 

pricing. To follow on from this, clients 

are also looking for more bespoke 

solutions to connectivity and liquidity. 

Instead of doing the heavy lifting 

around infrastructure many clients are 

using Euronext FX to assist with this 

service and using us as a bridge for 

their relationships,” says Euronext’s 

Beacroft. 

DIGITAL CURRENCIES 

Digital currencies have been a hot 

topic globally and that is no different 

in Singapore. The country is fast 

becoming a crypto trading hub, with 

many of the major crypto exchanges 

Vikas Srivastava 

setting up offices in Singapore, as well 

as OTC providers such as Cumberland, 

OSL and QCP. The Singapore central 

bank is known to be open to adopting 

blockchain, and also allowing Crypto 

Exchanges to setup and do their 

business in Singapore. 

“The demand from institutions are 

definitely increasing, and DBS is one 

of the first to respond by setting up 

their own Digital Asset Exchange, to 

answer to the demand,” says Spark 

Systems’ Wang. 

From a regulatory perspective, 

Singapore has taken a proactive 

approach to cryptocurrencies by 

introducing the Payment Services 

Act 2019 (PS Act). Among other 

things, the PS Act will regulate 

intermediaries dealing with certain 

cryptocurrencies, with a particular 

focus on consumer protection and 

anti-money laundering. Once it comes 

into force, it will also provide a stable 

regulatory licensing and operating 

framework for cryptocurrency entities, 

such as cryptocurrency exchanges. 

“Through Project Ubin, we had the 

opportunity to collaborate with other 

central banks, financial institutions 

and technology firms,” says a 

spokesperson for MAS. For example, 

MAS collaborated with the Bank of 

Canada for one of the phases of the 

project to demonstrate that cross 

border, cross currency payment using 

wholesale CBDC could be achieved 

without a common platform. 

“We concluded Project Ubin in 2020 

having successfully demonstrated 

that multi-currency payment and 

settlement across borders could be 

achieved in real time and at lower 

risks and costs,” the spokesperson 

says. 

“Technology is paramount in this competitive environment, 

where the fastest price and tightest spread often wins.” 

Since then the industry has moved 

forward to build upon the success 

of Project Ubin towards commercial 

adoption. For example, DBS Bank, 

JP Morgan and Temasek recently 

announced the launch of Partior, 

a joint venture company to create 

a new blockchain-based platform 

for payments, trade and foreign 

exchange settlement, using digitised 

commercial bank money. 

“As this digital currency has 

gained momentum, Singapore has 

emerged as a key hub in Asia with 

its welcoming attitude towards 

emerging technologies such as 

cryptocurrencies and blockchain. 

The Singapore government has 

reinforced this perception through 

its willingness to experiment, 

with the Monetary Authority of 

Singapore (MAS) exploring the use 

of distributed ledger technology for 

clearing and settling payments and 

securities, since late 2016,” says 

Ravinder Kaur. 

MAS continues to collaborate with 

the industry and other central banks 

on potential applications of wholesale 

CBDC. For example, it is collaborating 

with the Bank for International 

Settlements Innovation Hub and the 

central banking community to design, 

develop and test new multi-CBDC 

models for cross-border settlement. 

Project Dunbar will explore how 

different multi-lateral settlement 

platforms could be designed to link 

up with each other. 

“To encourage and facilitate open 

collaboration, we will be publishing 

our learnings through iterative and 

periodic publications that is intended 

to drive discussion and engagement. 

The first of a series of blog posts was 

published in April, on the topic of 

“Multi-CBDCs: Designing a digital 

currency stack for governability”,” 

says the MAS spokesperson. 


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The Siren FX 

4pm benchmark 

Dr Jamie Walton, co-founder of Raidne the independent quantitative FX surveillance firm, spoke to 

e-Forex about its new Siren FX 4pm benchmark. 

PRODUCT PROFILE 

Dr Jamie Walton 

Why did you decide to set up the 

Siren FX benchmark and how is it 

administered? 

The idea first presented itself in a 

meeting with a senior Bank of England 

official when he asked: “we wonder 

why, given the unfortunate tarnishing 

of the legacy 4pm fix with the 2014 FX 

rigging scandal, no viable commercial 

alternative has been offered to the 

market?” This valid question amplified 

what we already knew about the 

market and confirmed that senior 

banking regulators are still concerned 

about this benchmark. It established 

that the industry needed a more 

transparent, fairer benchmark that was 

harder to manipulate, and simpler for 

banks to trade while also protecting 

investors interests. 

In fact, the industry was not looking 

for an alternative, it was looking for 

an option that was fit for purpose. 

The Refinitiv WMR rate is useful as a 

source for FX rates to make valuation 

and investment comparisons. But it 

was never designed to be a dealing 

rate. We knew that with our in-house 

experience of the industry that this 

was a challenge we could take on. 

Siren has been deliberately 

designed for execution with special 

characteristics purposefully built in 

that take account of the end-user’s 

priorities. But meanwhile, banks can 

deliver the rates with minimum risk 

and slippage – even with the increased 

20 minute window. 

For administration of the benchmark, 

we partner with New Change FX 

(NCFX) which is regulated and 

approved under the FCA benchmark 

regime to administer Siren. The data 

is available to the buy-side for free 

and can be accessed via a free client 

login. Siren is available to banks for 

execution via a licensing agreement 

from Raidne; it is deliberately simple 

and low – $1 per $1,000,000 dealt. 

How is the benchmark constructed 

and when is it available? 

The Siren benchmark uses a 20 minute 

window as opposed to the WMR 5 

minute window. In addition, the use 

of an “optimal execution algorithm” 



which starts with tranches of smaller 

sized trades, makes it more complex 

for speculators to identify the trading 

signals generated by benchmark 

related activity. It is available every 

half hour, for the full trading week 

- the opening of the New Zealand 

stock exchange on Monday morning, 

through to the close of New York 

stock exchange on Friday evening 

(effectively from 10pm Sunday 

evening GMT through to 10pm Friday 

evening GMT). 

How have you engineered the 

benchmark to reduce excess market 

impact over the fixing window? 

WMR suffers from excess market 

impact because there is too much 

trading to be absorbed in such a 

small window of time. Siren solves 

this problem by lengthening the 

window to 20 minutes. Historically this 

might have been seen as problematic 

by banks due to the potential for 

increased tracking error but the 

Raidne alternative mitigates that risk 

by enabling banks to use a one second 

update feed from New Change FX. 

This allows banks to track the point to 

which the benchmark is converging. 

By reducing tracking error, banks may 

be able to be pass this on to investors 

in terms of lower fees. 

The “optimal execution on close” 

algorithm allows predetermined 

weights to be applied in the 20 minute 

window so the methodology used to 

calculate the benchmark is clear and 

unambiguous. Also, while the WMR 

takes prices from just three published 

venues (primarily Reuters), the New 

Change pricing feed derives its FCA 

approved and regulated independent 

mid rate, upon which Siren is based 

from over 10 venues. This means 

that, combined with the 20 minute 

window, it is significantly harder to 

manipulate. And ultimately it can offer 

far greater defence at the finish line. 

In what ways does Siren FX help 

the buyside to meet some of the 

requirements of the FX Global Code 

and address some of the problem 

areas associated with it for these 

firms? 

Principle 9 of the FX Global Code 

clearly states that market participants 

should regularly review the quality of 

their FX execution. As Siren is a new 

FX benchmark, clearly any company 

who is an adherent to the code ought 

to, at the very least, ascertain whether 

Siren could offer reduced FX execution 

costs for each fund an asset manager 

looks after. It is free to conduct this 

Siren study with Raidne, we have 

developed a spreadsheet tool for this 

purpose. 

Only 5 simple data points are 

required to run the tool: trade date, 

currency pair, customer direction 

(buy/sell), currency and amount of 

trade. In terms of problem areas in 

the FX code, Principle 10 allows a 

bank to pre-hedge a benchmark if 

they believe that trying to execute the 

entire order within the benchmark 

window might create negative 

market impact. Pre-hedging often 

has the unfortunate consequence 

of pushing prices away from most 

participants due to natural market 

forces, meaning most investors 

frequently receive worse fills. Siren 

mitigates that problem by allowing 

investors to explicitly participate 

in that pre-hedging, by including 

spot weights in the pre-hedging 

window so they benefit from those 

better earlier prices. The ‘licensing 

fee to use’ structure offers a more 

transparent way to measure the cost 

of execution. It is also very simple 

to run transaction cost analysis 

over the Siren benchmark because 

the methodology used to calculate 

the benchmark is published and 

unambiguous. 

What sort of savings do your results 

show could be made by Pension 

Funds and Asset Managers by trading 

with Siren FX? 

So far, Raidne has conducted 21 

studies for various funds globally. 

These studies show that the fund’s 

correlation to the directional flow of 

the fix ranges from 56% through to 

82%. At the low end, the savings 

demonstrated are in the hundreds of 

thousands of dollars savings, at the 

high end this equates to millions of 

dollars in savings. 

The highest saving we have seen so 

far is close to $20M in one month, 

with a near $3M saving in one trade. 

The results indicate that most funds 


The Siren FX 4pm benchmark 

new operating models that have led 

to significant regulatory risk from 

providing WMR services. Siren offers 

banks a more rounded, honest view 

because using it creates a route 

to charging a fair and transparent 

fee. And because it simultaneously 

minimises tracking error by accessing 

the one second update feed. A 

leading industry figure’s response after 

reading the Siren white paper was: 

“Brilliant. it solves a major problem 

that has been a headache for many 

for a long time.” 

Forward thinking asset managers 

have also embraced the benchmark 


will receive a hedging cost reduction 

by switching to Siren. Siren does 

not necessarily provide a benefit on 

every single trade but does so most 

of the time so on average, after a 

whole year’s trading, Siren is offering 

reduced FX execution for most funds. 

How easy is it for Asset Managers to 

analyse and determine which of their 

clients will benefit from switching to 

Siren? 

This can be achieved easily using 

our free tool (as mentioned earlier). 

It needs just 5 simple data points 

for each benchmark trade and will 

arm the asset manager with solid 

information enabling decisions to be 

made based on historic data. 

What response have you had to the 

launch of the Siren FX benchmark so 

far and in what ways do you think it 

may lead to further improvements in 

FX execution performance? 

We have had an excellent response 

from many market participants. 

Siren has been welcomed by banks 

following the WMR FX rigging 

controversy. Widely viewed as 

a ‘blemish’ on the industry, the 

collusion forced banks to implement 

alternative with enthusiasm and will 

certainly pull ahead of any of their 

peers who are reticent to review and 

offer investors savings. For some, this 

will be a differentiator that allows 

them to win mandates from asset 

managers who find adapting and 

overcoming inertia more challenging. 

Crucially, Siren has already revealed 

the reality of this area of the market. 

The results we have seen to date serve 

to identify the hidden cost of market 

impact (still not understood in full by 

many buy-side players). 

Notably, for some clients the only 

cost measured for transactions is 

the spread cost, which is surprising 

when you consider that market 

impact costs can be many multiples 

greater. Siren also has the capability 

to put the spotlight on transaction 

cost analysis companies. Those who 

analyse benchmark execution, without 

using an alternative benchmark for 

comparative purposes, face being 

viewed similarly to people who mark 

their own exam papers in that they 

tend to typically get much better 

results than by having an independent 

check. All of this bodes very well for 

the investors, and for those innovative 

asset managers who are keen to be 

on the front foot, comply with the law 

and do the right thing for their clients. 


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Tickmill 

Building a brokerage to 

become a trusted market 

leader and innovator 

Tickmill Group is an award-winning, multi-regulated Forex and CFD provider offering first-class products 

with industry-leading trading conditions. e-Forex talked with Ingmar Mattus, Co-Founder & Executive 

Director at the firm to learn more about its services and plans for the future. 


THE e-FOREX INTERVIEW 

Ingmar Mattus 


Tickmill – Building a brokerage to become a trusted market leader and innovator 

Our brand is usually associated with 

reliability, trustworthiness and with 

the idea of putting clients always first. 

What do your own day to day 

responsibilities within the firm usually 

involve? 


Tickmill’s office in Limassol 

Ingmar please tell us a little about the through which we mostly serve either 

background of Tickmill and how the other brokers or regulated proprietary 

Group is structured. 

trading firms whose business focuses 

on FX. 

Tickmill is a group of companies 

today serving traders in more than Today we employ 235 team members 

190 countries. We offer brokerage through our main offices in London 

services for Futures, Options, FX and (United Kingdom), Limassol (Cyprus) 

CFDs traders in underlying products and Tallinn (Estonia). We serve clients 

that span all the major asset classes through 5 regulated entities, all 

including stock indices, commodities, bearing the brand of Tickmill and 

bonds and FX. Our origins go back separately regulated by some of the 

to 2010 when along with other two world’s most reputable regulatory 

co-founders, Nikolai Nikolajenko bodies including the Financial Conduct 

and Ingmar Mattus, we created the Authority in the UK, the Cyprus 

business which eventually became Securities and Exchange Commission 

Tickmill. We are primarily known in Cyprus, the Financial Services 

today as an FX brokerage firm that Authority in Seychelles, the Labuan 

serves mostly demanding algorithmic Financial Services Authority in Malaysia 

traders, and due to the ability of the and the Financial Sector Conduct 

algorithms to trade 24/5, it translates Authority in South Africa. 

also into massive trading volumes 

which we constantly report to the In general, we aim to have a regulated 

public. In March, 2021, for example, entity in all regions where we have a 

we reached a record trading volume growing size of existing business, or 

of $195.6 billion notional value. Aside we see meaningful future potential. 

from serving tens of thousands of As such, we have already been in 

active individual FX traders, we have discussions to expand our presence 

also a growing institutional business by obtaining additional licenses. 

I am a member of the Group Board of 

Directors and on a daily basis I perform 

duties of Group COO overseeing group 

operations, brokerage, IT and Product 

development but as part of the overall 

management team I am involved in 

all aspects of the business, regardless 

of which field it is. My objective is 

to always make sure that our clients 

receive the best available service in a 

consistent and reliable way and that 

they can feel comfortable dealing with 

Tickmill as a counterparty. While clients 

often see the front end of the business 

there are actually more complexities 

in the back-end which clients never 

see. In a highly regulated environment 

where we operate in, we have to 

always be two steps ahead and make 

sure that we have backup plans and 

contingencies in place so that clients 

can rely on our services. 

To give some perspective to the 

readers, in Q1 2021 the total number 

of trades we executed for our clients 

exceeded 38 million. We have 

extremely robust systems in place 

to be able to perform our duties, 

and on a high-level, it is my ultimate 

responsibility to make sure that the 

machine works all the time. 

Tickmill has clearly gone about 

creating a company that delivers the 

trust and security that traders are 

increasingly looking for. How would 

you describe the principles that guide 

the business? 

All of the original founders, most of 

the current shareholders and the top 

level management team members 

have previous trading experience. 



Mostly it is with Stocks, Futures and 

Options. Therefore, we breath the 

same air like our trading clients, and 

we understand how difficult it is to 

reach success in trading. Our founding 

principle was and still is that whatever 

we do, we make sure that we offer 

only the absolute best trading service 

to our clients even if sometimes our 

bottom line might suffer because of 

this. It is no surprise then that since 

our inception, we have offered one of 

the lowest commissions and spreads in 

the industry while having also one of 

the fastest trade execution speeds. We 

never make compromises in terms of 

service quality. 

What is also very important with 

Tickmill is the fact that we run the 

company as a family business. We 

treat everybody equally and anybody 

can have a say or provide feedback on 

any matter of the business. This has 

created an environment of openness 

and transparency within the firm. 

Understanding the traders’ mindset, 

offering the best services to them with 

a motivated team that enjoys doing 

so, is something that clients feel and 

it is therefore the foundation of our 

growth. 

Who are the key members of 

Tickmill’s global management team? 

We consider every member of 

the team to be equally important 

in the company, but the group is 

effectively managed by the Group 

Board of Directors which comprises 

of eight people including the CEOs 

of regulated entities. This group 

consists of all three founders, CEO of 

Tickmill UK Ltd, Duncan Anderson, 

CEO of Tickmill Europe Ltd, Valerijus 

Ovsianikas, CEO of Tickmill Ltd, 

Sudhanshu Agarwal, CEO of Tickmill 

Estonia, Andres Vahopski and Group 

CFO, Derek Wilks. All of us meet every 

Monday to discuss strategic business 

matters. 

I am involved in all aspects of the business, regardless of which field it is 

The Tickmill team have many decades and reliable trading environment 

of trading experience. In what ways without any artificial delays or other 

has that helped the firm to design interferences. As our client base 

and engineer an exceptional trading mostly comprises of algorithmic 

environment that empowers your traders, who by nature are tech-savvy, 

clients to reach their full potential? they have tools which are easily able 

to assess the quality of the trading 

As most of us in the management environment. The fact that we have 

team have been actively trading so many of them trading with us is a 

the markets before through many testament to the good work that our 

other brokers, we have a very holistic global team has done over the years, 

understanding as to what aspects and we really appreciate this. 

of the services are important for 

the end client, the traders. The core What types of clients are you serving 

elements of the exceptional trading and in what ways has this been 

environment are low trading costs, evolving and changing since the 

fast execution and an extremely clean business started? 

We offer our clients a wide selection of trading platforms 




Originally when we started, our focus 

was on providing very good service 

quality and since we did not have 

any advertising budget, we did all 

the marketing ourselves by going 

out to free venues such as forums 

and trading groups. We did not 

know at that time that we would 

start attracting successful algorithmic 

traders but since these traders are 

We run the company as a family business 

generally very smart, they were just 

attracted by the quality of the service. 

The types of clients who we serve 

have not drastically changed over the 

years, although our global expansion 

has created different pools of clients 

based on the demographics and 

financial literacy of the population. 

Our most successful clients generally 

come from developed countries 

such as Germany, UK, France, Italy 

and some spots in Asia. Our recent 

expansion into Futures and Options 

has also started to bring in successful 

futures traders who we previously did 

not serve and in general we think that 

in a few years’ time we should get 

a quite healthy part of our business 

from Futures and Options. 

What markets and financial instruments 

can be traded with Tickmill? 

We offer real Futures and Options 

from exchanges like CME, CBOT, 

NYMEX and others, as well as CFDs 

on every major asset class out there 

including FX, Commodities, Bonds, 

Precious Metals, Stock Indices. We 

will very soon start offering CFDs 

on single stocks and also some very 

select cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and 

Ethereum. 

What range of platforms do you offer 

traders? 

Tickmill continues to win a variety of FX trading awards 

Futures and Options traders can trade 

with us through the CQG platform 



Trader education is important to Tickmill which hosts global trading seminars all over the world 

and also through Tradingview, 

MultiCharts and Sierra Charts. We are 

also able to connect any other major 

Futures platform out there that has 

API connectivity with CQG. FX and 

CFD traders use our MetaTrader 4 and 

MetaTrader 5 platforms. In general, 

we aim to provide our clients with 

popular trading platforms that have 

reached critical mass of users. 

Tickmill offers some very powerful 

trading toolsets. Please tell us a little 

more about those. 

We offer our clients a wide selection 

of trading platforms and a variety of 

platform-specific tools for charting, 

risk analysis, trade management, 

etc., that make the life of the trader 

easier. We also offer various analytical 

tools such as Autochartist, FXBlue 

and Acuity that enable the clients 

to improve their decision-making 

processes. We also provide a variety of 

trading webinars and seminars, oneto-one 

sessions for some client groups 

where we train the clients to use the 

tools properly. 

openness, transparency, and 

predictability. In terms of predictability, 

clients appreciate the fact that we 

always deliver, and whatever the 

circumstance, we will not let the 

client hang out in the rain. Clients 

should not expect from us anything 

unexpected, and I think over the years 

they have come to understand this. In 

terms of transparency, this also derives 

from our internal culture; we like to 

share information about our firm also 

with our clients. Although we are 

not a publicly listed company, we do 

publish our financial results annually. 

We do this because we want our 

clients and counterparties in general 

to know that they are dealing with 

a financially stable and trustworthy 

counterparty. Clients also value that 

they always know in our case who 

they are dealing with, who are the 

top-level managers, who are the 

faces behind the company. We have 

employed a personal approach in our 

communication with the outside world 

and this has helped us to build a lot 

of strength not only with the clients 

but also with other counterparties, 

including the regulators. 

How important is it for Tickmill to try 

and ensure that your interests are 

fundamentally aligned with clients 

wherever possible and how have you 

gone about achieving that? 

Having our interests aligned with 

the clients is a fundamental part 

of our culture. Whenever we make 

What do clients particularly value 

about working with Tickmill and 

why are increasing numbers of them 

choosing you as their preferred 

broker? 

Aside from the good trading 

conditions, we often hear back from 

clients that they like our reliability, 

The firm also makes continued efforts to support local communities and charitable organisations 



My objective is to 

always make sure 

that our clients 

receive the best 

available service 

systems are robust and scalable, it is 

quite easy for us to add new platforms, 

new tradable products and this enables 

us to be dynamic towards shifts in 

market trends and be ready to meet any 

client demand out there. 

Our last major strategic push in the 

technology front has been the launch 

of our very own back-office system 

which is the engine that connects all 

our internal and external systems and 

enables us to offer seamless service to 

our clients. Over the last two years, our 

whole organization did a very good 

job preparing for the launch of Futures 

and Options products which we did 

just a few months ago. We hope to 

continue on the same path to be able 

to constantly surprise our client base 


any decisions, we always think how 

this would affect the clients. For 

example, we are proud that in the 

cases of Swiss Franc melt-down or 

Brexit referendum, we preemptively 

increased the margins for all of our 

client base, in some cases much 

earlier than our competitors. We did 

this first of all to protect our clients, 

but also to protect the firm. If clients 

are strong and loyal to Tickmill, then 

Tickmill is also strong. 

We pay a lot of attention to what 

our clients write about us in various 

public forums because we want to 

make sure that they are happy with 

our service and if we can detect any 

spots where we can improve, then 

we always make best efforts to make 

it happen. In a way, we walk the 

same road with our clients; in order 

for us to succeed in the long term, 

the clients must value our relationship 

with them, and this can only come 

from good service and by putting 

clients’ interests first. 

What role has technology played 

in the success of Tickmill and how 

are you leveraging it to attract 

new clients and further strengthen 

your offering by opening up new 

investment and trading opportunities? 

While we use third-party trading 

platforms, most of our internal systems 

covering areas such as back-office, 

payments, risk management and many 

other non-visible systems are proprietary. 

Our internal systems are reliable and 

platform-agnostic which enables us to 

easily switch on or off trading platforms, 

payment systems, client communication 

tools, etc. To a large extent, if we 

had also our own front-end platform, 

then we could say that the majority 

of our technology is proprietary, and 

this is something that we are seriously 

considering lately. As our internal 

with new offerings. 

What services do you provide for 

institutions that are looking to partner 

with Tickmill? 

On the institutional domain, our focus 

over the years has been to provide 

liquidity for small and medium-sized 

hedge funds. It is not a major business 

for us, but it has been growing and we 

are quite well known in some of the 

hedge fund centers like London and 

Singapore. We believe that on the FX 

side we are able to provide some of 

the best execution quality out there. 

Eventually, we hope to expand also to 

the institutional space with our Futures 

and Options offering but our first 

objective in this front is to build up a 

sizable retail book, cross-selling Futures 

to our existing FX and CFD client base. 

Do you see increased regulatory 

oversight of FX and CFD trading as a 

positive step and an opportunity for 

Tickmill to differentiate itself? 

At Tickmill we embrace regulation. 

Not that it makes our life easier, 

but it makes the playground even 

and improves the overall stability of 



the ecosystem. We have come to 

understand that increased regulatory 

oversight will eventually consolidate 

the industry quite a bit and only wellcapitalized 

and reliable firms will be 

able to survive. As we have currently 

$50 million of net capital base in 

Tickmill Group, we are very well 

positioned to weather any additional 

regulatory changes or periods of low 

profitability and are able to play a 

big part in consolidating the industry 

also through our own acquisitions. 

In the long term, we see that the 

increased regulatory oversight will 

make the larger firms in the FX and 

CFD space, including Tickmill, much 

stronger and this is not only an 

opportunity for Tickmill but also for 

our current and future client base 

as we will be able to offer an even 

larger product and platform offering, 

new trading technologies and tools, 

under a reliable and safe network of 

globally regulated investment firms all 

operating under the Tickmill brand. 

What steps are going to be required 

from leading providers like Tickmill to 

attract a new generation of traders 

whose expectations in terms of 

product mix, platform functionality 

and trading opportunities are getting 

increasingly higher? 

Obviously as the technologies and the 

end clients become more and more 

sophisticated, we have to adjust as 

well. On the product front we must 

constantly expand our offering, we 

have to provide additional trading 

platforms, more payment systems to 

each country so that we are able to 

facilitate payments for the clients and 

we also have to be very cost-focused 

as the wider brokerage industry is 

going through the downward spiral of 

continuously lowering pricing for end 

clients. One can only do that through 

technology and in that sense, over 

the next few years we will most likely 

be hiring more technology people 

in Tickmill than any other people. 

Aside from technology, we must also 

constantly evolve in terms of how 

we market and sell our products and 

boosting creativity in our marketing 

teams is something we are always 

focused on to be able to engage our 

clients with information and content 

that provides value to them and that 

enables us to differentiate from our 

competitors who we have many. 

How do you see the retail financial 

trading market evolving over 

the next few years and how is 

Tickmill preparing to capture the 

opportunities this will present? 

Retail financial trading environment 

will become more competitive as there 

are more and more entrants coming to 

this space, especially from the fintech 

front. Some of the brands that may 

be globally known in five years from 

now may not even exist today or they 

are still under development. In order 

to compete on this front, we have to 

be constantly on the leading edge to 

meet the demand and needs of our 

clients and in a lot of cases this means 

innovation and technology. In the 

wider internet space, globally, nobody 

is able to compete today with Amazon, 

Google, Facebook and the likes. It is 

possible to compete with them only 

in some local markets with localized 

approach. In the retail financial trading 

space, globally, in five years, the 

market may also be divided by 20-30 

firms who offer investment products 

from A to Z and through platforms 

that most likely are quite simple but 

extremely user-friendly and hyperintuitive. 

As such, we are constantly 

monitoring what is happening on the 

global retail financial trading space 

to the extent that we are also willing 

to do acquisitions of any interesting 

technologies that enable us to capture 

more clients, offer more products or 

in general run our business in a more 

efficient way. 

In such a competitive market, how 

has Tickmill gone about trying to 

distinguish itself among global Forex 

brokers? 

The distinguishing factor in the case 

of Tickmill is first of all, being run 

by people who actually understand 

the brokerage business and what 

the end clients’ needs are. We 

have been successful in combining 

various trading technologies, 

business development and marketing 

experience and excellent customer 

service to deliver a final product 

that stands out with its ease of use, 

competitive pricing, and reliability. 

Offering this from a firm that is 

open and transparent and when a 

CEO of the firm is literally one email 

away for any client is something 

that distinguishes ourselves from 

most other firms out there. We are 

reachable, we listen, and we try to 

support all of our clients in the best 

possible way. 

What regions around the world will 

you be focusing your efforts on to 

strengthen Tickmill’s presence over 

the next few years and why are these 

important? 

We have been historically strong in 

Europe, Asia, the Middle East and 

Africa region. Our growth markets 

for the next few years aside from 

these regions are South America and 

eventually also North America. We 

are constantly on the lookout for new 

partners in most markets and we have 

financial strength inside the firm and 

also outside from our shareholders 

that enable us to seize any kind of 

opportunities stranding from organic 

growth with existing or new products 

or acquisitions of other brokers or 

technology providers. We live in very 

dynamic times and we as a team 

are quite sure that there are many 

interesting opportunities still ahead for 

our firm. 


Improving client access to 

Emerging Market FX trading 

Choosing the right partner and digital pathways 

Nicholas Pratt investigates how electronic FX platforms are 

evolving to cater for a broader universe of EM currencies and 

related instruments and transforming how clients access them. 




Nicholas Pratt 

In 2020 there was sizeable increase in 

investors’ interest in emerging markets 

(EMs). According to DMALINK, the 

FX-focused ECN, client demand for 

emerging markets FX and equities rose 

to its highest peak since 2017 thanks 

to a sliding dollar and the prospect of 

a global recovery in 2022 – a process 

accelerated by the global rollout of 

Covid 19 vaccines. 

For electronic FX platforms, this 

demand has led them to consider 

how to cater for a broader universe 

of emerging market currencies and 

to improve client access to these 

instruments. “We rely on regional 

access to risk-warehousing market 

makers to match with client orders,” 

says Michael Siwek, co-founder of 

DMALINK. “Local pricing gives clients 

an edge by tapping into skewed 

liquidity pools and full amount 

feeds, underpinned by independent 

reference-rate data to quantify results 

and best execution.” 

OPERATIONAL RISK 

One of the most important roles 

for electronic trading platforms is 

to reduce the operational risks that 

are potentially greater in emerging 

markets where liquidity is thinner and 

volatility is greater. 

“To eliminate market friction, venues 

can help by introducing automated 

responses to clients across restricted 

EM pairs,” says Siwek. “In addition, 

e-venues can help market participants 

transact EM currencies by streaming 

tailored two-way pricing from a 

collection of risk warehousing market 

markets to provide continuous pricing 

during times of greater volatility. 

Segregated pools of liquidity may 

be created to reduce market impact. 

Peer-to-peer pools are an alternative 

when liquidity is thin. Knowing when 

to trade and with whom can be key 

to getting filled. Finally, electronic 

solutions are less prone to error 

through the trade execution, clearing, 

and settlement lifecycle,” he states. 

Siwek believes that new digital services 

can help to solve the complexity and 

manual intervention problems that are 

inherent in emerging market custody 

FX processes. “In restricted EM 

currencies especially, the use of direct 

API integration or an execution frontend 

between counterparties to deliver 

streaming prices, coupled with STP 

solutions, provides greater efficiencies 

and reduced trade lifecycles,” he says. 


Improving client access to Emerging Market FX trading - Choosing the right partner and digital pathways 


“Digital and electronic solutions often help in disintermediating 

access to the market, thereby opening a more direct form of 

access to more participants,” 

“Digital and electronic solutions often 

help in disintermediating access to the 

market, thereby opening a more direct 

form of access to more participants. 

We are currently developing a model 

that will enable central banks of 

developing nations to better manage 

their currencies and the associated 

credit component through use of 

technology and swift communication 

systems.” 

Siwek also believes that decentralised 

finance, or DeFi, technology will play 

a major role in the development 

of digital workflow innovation. 

“As blockchain and smart contract 

technologies become more mature, 

we believe that financial markets will 

enter the next evolutionary phase,” 

he says. 

Michael Siwek 

Central banks are also taking greater 

interest in decentralised finance in 

both developed and developing 

economies. This has led to the 

development of central bank digital 

currencies (CBDCs). In the UK, the 

Bank of England has looked at the 

possibility of a so-called britcoin while 

Bank of Korea governor Lee Ju-yeol 

has said that the emergence of CBDCs 

will reduce the high demand for 

cryptocurrencies. Bank of Korea is 

planning to debut a CBDC later this 

year, as are central banks in China, 

Russia, Turkey and Jamiaca. 

Siwek says that the intervention of 

central banks of emerging economies 

can help stabilise and control the 

exchange rate of an underlying 

currency through monetary policy. 

“Central bank digital currencies can 

help governments introduce more 

efficient controls, such as negative 

interest rates, which would apply to 

all money in circulation should the 

elimination of physical cash become a 

reality. Alternatively, the evolution of 

decentralised finance and the effects of 

its underlying technology can bolster 

the relevance of emerging market 

currencies within a global economy, 

optimise efficiencies, and remove risk. 

It can also enable buyers and sellers to 

clear and settle with each other in near 

real-time without the intervention of 

third parties,” he states. 

When it comes to choosing a suitable 

EM trading provider as a partner, 

Siwek believes that trading venues 

can differ greatly in their offering and 

clients should make a decision based 

on their underlying requirements 

such as access to currencies on offer 

and API vs GUI systems to cater for 

automated vs manual trading. 

“Speed of execution, server co-location 

across strategic geographical locales 

minimising latency, availability of 

liquidity across time zones, cost of credit 

of transacting on a given venue coupled 

with the ability to match orders with 

sustainable uncorrelated quotes are 

critical decision-making points.” 

Siwek also says that clients should 

consider measuring their true cost 

of execution and use a system to 

provide independent benchmark 

services through independently 

verifiable reference rates. “We feel 

that providing quantifiable data to 

demonstrate the actual cost of trading 

is essential, as many of our new 

and existing clients are starting to 

discover.” 

“We are working with our sister 

company DeFinity to provide FX 

market participants with faster 

settlement times - these can currently 

take from one to three days. We 

feel that the process of transfer 

of ownership can be expedited 

substantially using technology and 

an increase of direct transactions 

between buyers and sellers can be 

enabled.” 

Ashvin Parkash 

QUICKER PACE 

The move to electronic trading for EM 

currencies has happened at a quicker 

pace than for G10 pairs many years 

ago, says Ashvin Parkash, global head 

“As users become more comfortable with using platforms, 

they tend to broaden out their usage to different products 

or currency sets. The pandemic has only accelerated these 

moves,” 



of eDistribution at Nomura. “With 

clients wanting to trade as much as 

possible electronically, the sell side has 

sped up the development of these to 

offer EM as much as possible. With 

more sources of electronic liquidity for 

EM – the sell side is able to leverage 

this to accurately automate pricing 

directly instead of relying on voice 

broker lines to estimate levels. This 

in turn allows clients to confidently 

execute EM via platforms.” 

There is also a role for new technology 

and digital solutions to reduce manual 

intervention in EM FX processes, says 

Parkash. “For now, larger sized EM 

requests will be priced on an RFQ 

basis by traders. But we have seen the 

gradual growth of auto-price levels 

and this continues to move upwards 

as connectivity, accurate benchmark 

checking, auto-skew abilities and 

further technological enhancements 

give both the sell side and buy side 

confidence that EM pairs can be 

largely executed and autopriced 

‘hands-free’ by both counterparties.” 

The use of electronic platforms lends 

itself to solving the operational risk 

problems that come with voice trading 

and naturally this is greater in the 

EM space, says Parkash. “As users 

become more comfortable with using 

platforms, they tend to broaden out 

their usage to different products or 

currency sets. The pandemic has only 

accelerated these moves and we 

expect a continued move to electronic 

platforms for EM currencies eventually 

reaching G10 levels of execution.” 

“Having a provider who is able to absorb the size you want to 

execute, however large, is important.” 

the algos had a limited set of venues 

for liquidity, but that is set to grow 

and will lead to better performance, 

as well as more competitive pricing. 

Clients who are already using algos 

for other products will naturally 

gravitate to NDF algos in our opinion. 

This is a growth opportunity in the EM 

FX space,” he says. 

Local expertise and risk appetite are 

key factors when it comes to choosing 

a suitable EM trading provider, says 

Daniels. “At Nomura, we are naturally 

focussed on Asia and are in a unique 

position to offer our intellectual 

capital and risk appetite across 

currencies in the region. Having a 

provider who is able to absorb the size 

you want to execute, however large, is 

important.” 

Ian Daniels 

SINGAPORE SWING 

Singapore is at the centre of the 

development of the emerging NDF 

marketplace, says Ludovic Blanquet, 

chief product and strategic planning 

officer at smartTrade Technologies. 

In an effort to become a player in 

the FX pricing market and displace 

Tokyo as the APAC hub for FX trading, 

Singapore has set up the SG1 data 

centre and has already attracted a 

large number of sell-side providers 

initially focusing on the NDF market. 

“A lot of EM currencies in Asia are 

traded via NDFs,” says Blanquet. “The 

trading is becoming more automated 

but you cannot just take execution 

algos and just apply them to the 

NDF market. There are more liquidity 

exceptions and a higher concentration 

of liquidity providers. There are also 

fewer latency requirements and 

settlement issues.” 

The building blocks are all there 

to develop a fully electronic EM FX 

marketplace in the likes of Singapore 

and across the APAC region, says 

Blanquet. So what is holding this 

back? “There is a lack of electronic 

tools among the regional banks. They 

are not investing in advanced trading 

platforms. For full automation to 

occur, the banks need to make that 

When it comes to the development of 

digital workflow innovation in EM EX 

platforms, it is likely that we will see 

the growth of the NDF algo over the 

next two years, says Ian Daniels, Head 

of eFX Distribution, EMEA at Nomura. 

“There is certainly client demand, 

but take up has been relatively slow, 

often due to cost and the fact that 

The evolution of decentralised finance and the effects of its underlying technology can bolster the 

relevance of emerging market currencies 



“The size of the trades will be smaller in EMs as opposed to G10 

currencies so firms will need to a find a way to balance human 

oversight with electronification.” 

investment in the next two to five 

years. There are the large liquidity 

providers that have these tools, but 

you need the local correspondent 

banks to participate and at the 

moment these local banks have a 

relatively low level of automation and 

the market is currently constrained by 

that,” says Blanquet. 

In the meantime, FX trading firms 

will need to build some flexibility into 

their trading set-up, says Blanquet. 

Stephane Houriez 

Ludovic Blanquet 

“Firms will need to be more nimble. 

The size of the trades will be smaller 

in EMs as opposed to G10 currencies 

so firms will need to a find a way 

to balance human oversight with 

electronification.” 

HUGE EVOLUTION 

In the past five years, there has been a 

huge evolution in EM platforms for FX 

in terms of liquidity and accessibility, 

says Stephane Houriez, global 

coordinator of local markets rates and 

FX e-trading for BNP Paribas. 

“Emerging market FX is now well 

developed on major electronic 

distribution platforms for the top EM 

currencies, having overcome major 

obstacles related to local regulations 

and market conventions,” says 

Houriez, who is based in Hong Kong. 

“When looking at the availability of FX 

liquidity tradable electronically, the gap 

between G10 and EM has tightened 

uniformly in global markets while in 

domestic markets the evolution was 

less even due to local specificities.” 

One area of the market that has 

developed quickly in recent years is 

listed FX products, especially Futures in 

Chinese yuan offshore, Indian rupee or 

Mexican peso, while Brazil and Korea 

had an active FX Futures market for a 

longer time. For example, in April, the 

HKEX announced the launch of the 

Mini USD/CNH Currency Future, to 

complement their offer in RMB listed 

derivatives, catering to the needs of 

some market participants who prefer 

“Emerging market FX is now well developed on major 

electronic distribution platforms for the top EM currencies, 

having overcome major obstacles related to local regulations 

and market conventions,” 

cash settled contract and/or smaller 

contract size. With the ample liquidity 

and competitive bid-ask spreads, the 

MCS Futures contract can provide 

trading convenience to different market 

participants and individual investors. 

A key reason for the development of 

the FX futures market is the financial 

crisis of 2008 which saw a global trend 

to focus on instruments with central 

counterparties (CCPs) rather than 

bilateral trading. According to Houriez, 

this trend is not limited to emerging 

markets but has been across the board 

ever since the crisis. 

One benefit of this trend is that it 

enables more market participants to 

access emerging markets, especially 

institutional investors with investment 

mandates that preclude them from 

entering certain markets or trading 

certain instruments. And electronic 

trading platforms for FX futures can 

provide both more transparency and 

less operational risk, helping to reduce 

volatility in those emerging markets 

where liquidity is thinner. 

Emerging markets are generally well 

represented on the major FX trading 

platforms. And margins have reduced 

in recent years. However, says Houriez, 

there is still progress to expect in 

certain markets. “The key enabler is the 

availability of quality electronic market 

data as opposed to quotes transmitted 

by voice. But as long as there is a deep 

interdealer market and the pricing is 

transparent, then the development of 

e-trading is possible.” 

The NDF market has also been a key 

development in emerging market 

trading, says Asif Razaq, global head 

of FX Algo Execution at BNP Paribas. 

“The NDF market has traditionally 

been a voice-based market. However 

we are now seeing NDF’s being 

actively traded on the same electronic 

platforms (ECNs) as Spot FX where 



“The NDF market has traditionally been a voice-based market. 

However we are now seeing NDF’s being actively traded on the 

same electronic platforms (ECNs) as Spot FX..” 

market makers are utilising the same 

technology to price NDF’s.” 

As these markets become more 

Asif Razaq 

electronically mature, we will start to 

see greater use of execution algorithms 

for NDFs, says Razaq. “It is a natural 

evolution in the use of algos – the G10 

currencies, the EM currencies, and now 

the NDF market. Clients are seeking to 

optimise their FX trading efficiency by 

utilising execution algos to reduce the 

cost of NDF execution as these markets 

become electronically mature.” 

In essence, it is about developing an 

electronic ecosystem for EMs and 

about making the entire transaction 

electronic, from price discovery 

to execution. However, for this 

ecosystem to take shape, the whole 

market needs to be electronic, says 

Razaq. “Every market participant 

has to go through an upgrade, from 

the ECNs to the market makers and 

the custody platforms, to be able to 

support greater use of algos in EMs 

and NDFs.” This is not a complex task 

from a tech perspective, says Razaq. 

“We are simply applying the same 

principles for G10 currencies and using 

the same technology to expand into 

EMs. It comes down to a cost-benefit 

analysis and how committed firms are 

to make that investment in EMs. There 

are various factors that influence this 

analysis, such as the availability of credit 

or the level of risk. The wider use of 

global settlement system CLS is helping 

to reduce settlement risk in EMs and 

make these markets more attractive.” 

The final point that Razaq makes in the 

case for electronic trading of EM FX 

is the need for banks like BNP Paribas 

to have an onshore presence. “The 

onshore presence is fundamental and 

core for any bank’s platform,” says 

Razaq. “It gives you an edge in pricing 

and execution but also helps to provide 

market ‘colour from the ground’. 

Having this local presence comes at a 

cost but it is a key part of our EM FX 

strategy.” 

NDF TRADING 

NDF trading is playing a vital role in EM FX but how can 

the liquidity in these instruments be made more widely 

available? NDF instruments are critical in the world of EM, 

says DMALink’s Siwek. “Streaming NDF pricing through 

direct API connectivity using suitable credit intermediaries 

can help clients access a wider range of NDF pricing across 

time zones. Flexible broken-date NDF pricing is equally 

important and can add value. Algorithmic trading facilities 

can minimise transaction costs further by capitalising on 

more spread from passive orders vs other liquid currency 

pairs. Electronic venues can help NDF traders by providing 

deeper liquidity to facilitate such algorithmic trading 

models to minimise market impact,” he says. 

“Finally, the fragmentation of pricing, especially in Asia 

(where many brokers churn the same price across multiple 

channels), can be countered by reverting a sustainable 

risk-warehousing model. Again, here market impact should 

be measured through benchmarked execution verified 

by independent mid-rates. Ideally, this solution should 

be made available through one portal where clients can 

transact and measure their trading costs.” 

As NDF trading growth continues to accelerate, it has 

become a key focus for both sell and buy side alike, 

says Nomura’s Daniels. This growth is evidenced in 

the most recent BIS survey which showed a noticeable 

growth in forwards, particularly NDFs. “The one month 

NDF effectively trades like spot FX and has become 

commoditised, although liquidity is not as deep and widely 

available as the more liquid G10 pairs. When you move 

into the broken dates, liquidity thins out further and here 

it comes down to having the right models and trading 

expertise to take advantage of the opportunities,” says 

Daniels. 

“Non-one month NDFs and NDS are going more and more 

electronic in terms of client execution preference, however 

it will be a while before the risk management becomes 

fully automated – hence the need for strong EM traders 

to manage this risk. We think liquidity conditions will 

continue to improve for clients, as the interbank market 

place expands and adds liquidity venues. This allows the 

sell side to extend out auto pricing parameters and connect 

clients via direct APIs, as well as the current multi and 

single dealer platforms,” says Daniels. 


TickTrade’s AI and 

Analytics platform 

By Steve Joseph, Head of Product, AI and Analytics at TickTrade Systems 


Steve Joseph 

We are all looking forward to the 

day where we can live life with some 

sense of normalcy. That would mean 

COVID-19 numbers are significantly 

down, everyone who is eligible is 

vaccinated, and we can experience life 

the way we did pre-pandemic (for the 

most part). Depending on where you 

are in the world, there are variations of 

this new-normal. As banks get to that 

time of year where next year’s targets 

are being planned, there are a few 

pressing questions for banks: 

We hear the terms AI, Machine- 

Learning and Big-Data being thrown 

around and used every day, yet 

have some difficulty in applying it to 

traditional businesses like FX. Some 

firms may have access to resources 

such as data scientists, quants and 

developers that can help them analyze 

data, but in the world of cost-cutting 

while still raising revenue targets, most 

firms do not. If however, you have the 

luxury of hiring someone, do you hire 

someone to analyze customer data or 

engage customers directly to generate 

sales? Most firms will opt for the latter. 

But things are changing. AI and 

Machine Learning is becoming more 

and more accessible for banks and their 

business units. A Bain study of 400 

companies in the world with 

revenue over USD 1 billion found that 

companies who successfully utilized 

analytics are: 

• Doubling their chances of being in 

the top quartile of their respective 

industries from a financial 

perspective 

• Improving three-fold the likelihood 

of executing decisions as intended 

• 5x more likely to make quicker 

decisions 

There is a broader theme of 

democratization happening which 

looks to level the playing field in 

everything imaginable, and not 

necessarily in the extreme scenario of 

bringing back Blockbuster Video or 

Gamestop to your local mall or plaza. 

In its simplest form, we are moving 

towards a curated world where our 

user experience is decided for us based 

on historical and peer performance. 

Our smartphone apps tell us what 

music we should be listening to, and 

if you watched “the Crown” and 

1. Can we increase the value of our 

customer relationships in a post- 

pandemic environment? 

2. Can we service a large customer 

base with a small team while still 

meeting targets? 

3. Can we leverage historical and 

future data to recommend a 

better way to do business with our 

customers? 

The answer is yes, Yes and YES. 



“Stranger Things”, Netflix will tell you 

that you will also like “Tiger King”. The 

truth is, we no longer want to spend 

time “figuring out what we like”. We 

want to know what we need to know, 

and we want to know it NOW! 

So how are we at TickTrade answering 

the 3 questions mentioned at the 

beginning of this article? TickTrade’s 

new AI and Analytics solution uses 

historical, real-time and soon actionable 

outcomes to meet this demand 

while keeping true to our ethos of 

sophistication coupled with an intuitive 

user experience. As a former bank FX 

salesperson, our head of product for 

AI & Analytics chose to drive the user 

experience by enabling bank sales 

teams to focus on key customers that 

need attention based on events driven 

by our TickTrade Notification Engine. 

When covering customers, sales teams 

want to know about: 

• Customers that are trending higher 

(volume/revenue) 

• Customers that are trending lower 

and possible detractors 

• Changes in customer behaviour 

that need immediate attention (i.e., 

Significantly high volumes, changed 

directional bias, new currency pairs 

being requested) 

• Opportunities to upsell/cross-sell 

• Run rate compared to previous time 

periods 

Our real-time analytics dashboard hits 

all of the above. 

HOW DO WE DO IT? 

Highlight High-Value Clients 

Customers - We use historical and 

real-time information that runs through 

our proprietary machine learning 

algorithms that then highlight businessimpacting 

signals to the sales teams. 

While our TickTrade Real-Time Sales 

Dashboard displays all the analysis 

and information, the user experience 

is driven through our TickTrade 

Notification Engine which breaks out 

notifications into 3 categories: 

• First Time Behaviour – notifies 

change in dealing direction, pricing 

requests, product requests (spot, 

fwd, swaps), new currency pairs 

• Benchmark Behaviour – changes 

based on the customers’ average 

trade size, currency pair traded, 

frequency of trading. 

• Periodic Analysis - provides 

notification about significant 

changes with key customers vs. 

previous time periods. 

The salesperson can then do a deeper 

dive using our Customer Overview 

or Customer Details tabs in our 

dashboard. Users can view historical 

and real-time information in these tabs 

on various industry metrics that relate 

to their business, (revenue, fill ratios, 

trade frequency data, etc…). Having a 

centralized dashboard to view important 

customer information enables you to 

make decisions quicker and enables you 

to effectively manage a large customer 

base with a small team. The Result – a 

higher quality interaction with your 

customer, combined with increased 

volumes and revenue. 

Higher Quality Client Interaction - 

We also have our TickTrade Customer 

Behaviour module which uses AI and 

Machine-Learning to generate and 

separate your customers into clusters 

and segments based on similar traits 

and characteristics. There might be 

some similarities about your customers 

that you might be unaware of that 

group customers together. Things like 

seasonality, trade frequency, volumes, 

price sensitivity, etc… Our algorithms 

will find them and organize them 

holistically so you can optimize your 

customer engagement. Your customers 

will migrate from one segment to 

another based on their business 

growing or shrinking for example, 

and often banks do not realize that 

the customer’s business needs have 

changed. They will not see that the 

customer is dealing larger volumes, or 

more frequently, or looking at other 

currency pairs till it’s too late. In doing 

so, banks may forgo opportunities 

to price them accordingly or save the 

relationship. 

A big complaint from SME businesses 

that are growing is that their bank 

continues to treat them as a “small 

business” and not educate them on 

more sophisticated ways to hedge 

their risk. Our Customer Behaviour 

module will allow you to visualize your 

customer groups in our dashboard, and 

identify what caused one segment or a 

customer within a segment to migrate 

to another cluster. It could be that their 

volumes decreased by 30%, RFQ rates 

increased by 40%, and cancellations 

increased by 40% - which would tell 

us that this customer has become more 


TickTrade’s AI and Analytics platform 

Benefits of TickTrade’s AI & ML Solutions 

See and anticipate customer activity and take immediate actions 

TTS 

Database 

Book of 

Record 

Retail 

Bank Trader 

FX Portal 

SDP 

Real-Time 

Ai & Analytics 

Solution 

Bank 

Bank Trader 

FX Portal 

SDP 

Mid-Market 

Commercial 

In-House System 

3rd Party System 

Notification Engine 

• Trends 

• Changes 

• Patterns 

• Outliers 

• Comparisons 

• Growers/Detractors 

Algorithm publishes via 

TickTrade Dashboard: 

• Upsell/Cross - Sell 

• Personalized Marketing 

• Dynamic Pricing 

• Optimized Risk 

Management 

Actionable Items via 

TickTrade Platforms 

• Upsell/Cross - Sell 

• Personalized Marketing 

• Dynamic Pricing 

• Optimized Risk 

Management 

Corporate 

Institutional 


price-sensitive and possibly “shopping 

around” with competitors. Our product 

will not only enable you to see this 

analysis graphically, but we will also 

have a Recommendation Engine with 

suggestive actions. In the above example, 

customer communication would have 

been recommended, in other cases, 

it could be pricing changes or other 

products and solutions that would better 

suit the customer. 

Focused Marketing – Don’t we all hate 

getting marketing that is not relevant to 

us? Now picture a commercial banking 

customer that receives marketing by way 

of trade ideas, products, and solutions 

that do not apply to them. It shows 

that the bank does not know what 

their customer needs. From a marketing 

standpoint, it allows banks to target 

customers that are in a particular group 

more effectively with tailored solutions, 

therefore optimizing the engagement. 

There could be particular seasonality for 

a specific group of customers in a cluster, 

and a more focused solution could be 

applied to that group to help them 

hedge against volatility (ex. Commodity 

based customer groups). You will be able 

to identify only the customers that need 

attention, beyond a threshold even, and 

directly market solutions to them. 

This is known in the industry as Hyperpersonalization. 

We also found that 

your customers are keen to know what 

their “peers” (by size and/or industry) 

are doing to manage their business from 

a best practices perspective; our tools 

make it easy for your sales team to see 

this information and share with their 

customers accordingly. 

Actionable Outcomes – The ultimate 

goal of our program is to have predictive 

and actionable outcomes based on the 

analyses and recommendations from 

our platform. This will mean that sales 

teams could receive prompts to change 

pricing to a more competitive template 

for a cluster of possible detracting 

customers; push relevant marketing and 

research material to seasonal customers; 

and/or proactively push an RFQ rate 

to the customer via virtual assistant 

on web or mobile prompting them to 

trade. If customers are doing quite a 

bit of price discovery at a certain level, 

a prompt is sent for them to leave an 

order or call level with the amount they 

were requesting. Initially actionable 

outcomes will prompt the salesperson for 

acceptance before the machine performs 

any actions. Eventually, within configured 

parameters, banks will allow machines 

to perform the “boring” tasks allowing 

salespeople to focus on the high-touch/ 

high-value relationships. This is a very 

important point about AI and Machine 

Learning, as there are certain nuances 

of customer interaction that still need 

human interaction, primarily on the 

relationship management and structured 

solution side of the business. 

In Conclusion - Sales teams at banks 

are facing the following challenges: 

• Increased competition 

• Slimmer margins 

• Increased targets 

• Shift to cross-asset sales teams 

from a single asset class 

• Tools for quicker decision making 

The above means there is less time 

to sift through data about customers 

and perform analyses, not to mention 

being able to respond to demanding 

customers in a fast-paced market. 

Sales teams are now investing in 

the tools that inform them, provide 

analysis to make a decision, and 

prompt them or the customer to 

perform an action. 

At TickTrade we firmly believe our 

solution provides your team with 

the tools to being informed, make 

decisions and have a higher-quality 

interaction with your customers. 

TickTrade’s AI and Analytics platform 

allows banks to effectively manage 

a large customer base with a small 

team by combining historical and 

real-time capabilities to recognize 

and understand your customers’ 

behaviour. Our future roadmap will 

also include predictive capabilities 

which will allow banks to anticipate FX 

volumes, future customer engagement 

and manage risk accordingly. 



What most brokers got 

wrong with their Crypto 

CFDs. The story so far... 

By Evgeny Sorokin, SVP of Software Engineering at Devexperts 


Evgeny Sorokin 

It’s been fascinating to watch 

the growth of the cryptocurrency 

space over the past decade. 

Initially, it was all very fringe. No 

regulation, exchanges that ran 

the gamut from well-meaning 

but ill-equipped, all the way to 

complete Wild West. For those of 

us who’ve been around for a few 

years, it was all very reminiscent 

of the earliest incarnations of the 

online CFD industry. 

Then, when the crypto bull 

market of 2016-2018 catalysed 

much broader coverage of 

the space, many traditional FX 

brokers started adding crypto 

CFDs to their respective offerings. 

The industry had already been 

pivoting to multi-asset brokerage, 

so the addition of a whole new 

asset class seemed like a simple 

decision. However, by the time 

many brokers got around to 



doing this, the bull market was 

already long in the tooth, and 

a two-year crypto bear market 

ensued in which interest in the 

space dipped precipitously, along 

with the price. 

THE PANDEMIC & 

COINBASE IPO 

Enter 2020. A pandemic, the 

worst market crash in recent 

memory, followed by one of 

the most blistering recoveries 

in history. The crisis and its 

handling, as well as the fragilities 

it revealed in many areas of 

the traditional financial system, 

added further fuel to crypto’s 

fire just as the space was gearing 

up for another bull run. This time 

around, many institutions joined 

retail traders in recognising the 

value of crypto investments as an 

option against the status quo. 

Cut to April 14, 2021, we 

witnessed crypto exchange 

Coinbase going public on the 

Nasdaq with a valuation of 

$87.3 billion after its first trading 

session. Coinbase now boasts 56 

million verified users, that’s more 

than Robinhood and Charles 

Schwab combined. So, have 

crypto exchanges managed to 

leapfrog their older siblings, the 

humble retail stock brokers and 



Most CFD brokers didn’t act swiftly enough when interest in this new asset class started to grow 

FX/CFD brokers that paved the way for The truth is, most CFD brokers didn’t 

the retail trading revolution? And what act swiftly enough when interest in this 

have CFD brokers specifically gotten new asset class started to grow. Back 

wrong in their handling of the crypto in 2014-2015 many weren’t interested. 

phenomenon? 

Then, by the end of 2017, the industry 

was rushing to offer CFDs on whatever 

YOU CAN’T SET IT AND FORGET IT coins happened to be in the top 10 

If you talk to anyone working a dealing rankings. It was a new market that 

desk, you’ll hear variations of the same most didn’t understand, so those early 

theme. Crypto CFDs don’t generate a crypto CFDs haven’t aged particularly 

ton of volume, they never really have, well. In fact, you can actually tell when 

and the top traded products are still many CFD brokers started adding 

EURUSD, the S&P 500, and gold. How crypto by the names they still list. 

can this still be the case when Binance, Many of those coins have since fallen 

the number one crypto exchange in favour. The bitcoins and ethers of 

in the world, generates around $50 this world are still up there, but dash, 

billion in daily volumes from crypto maidsafe, NEM, bitcoin cash and 

derivatives alone? 

ethereum classic haven’t fared as well. 

KNOW WHAT TRADERS WANT 

Aside from timing, there’s another 

reason crypto CFDs have failed to 

generate the interest they could 

have. It comes down to a failure in 

understanding the product itself, and 

a concomitant failure in marketing 

it correctly. The decision of FX/CFD 

brokers to add crypto in the first place 

was more of a box-ticking exercise 

than anything else. It added another 

asset class and more individual 

symbols to brokers’ existing offerings, 

regardless of whether there was 

any buzz around them. A lack of 

knowledge regarding how crypto 

works from a user perspective led 

most CFD brokers to just treat these 

products as if they belonged to any 

other asset class. They copy/pasted the 

formula for adding them, populated 

their websites with all the relevant 

marketing copy, and then wondered 

why there wasn’t any interest. 

This led to a situation in which existing 

clients who didn’t understand crypto 

remained on the sidelines, and existing 

crypto investors saw no reason to 

trade CFDs rather than purchasing 

and taking possession of the real thing 

on a crypto exchange. Meanwhile, 

the real traders who were actually 

interested in gaining exposure to 

derivatives were underserved until the 

crypto exchanges themselves started 

offering margin trading, or crypto-only 

derivatives brokers like Deribit started 

springing up. 

Existing CFD traders who have traditionally just traded FX and commodities can be enticed by a broader CFD offering 

Why were they so underserved? 

Because FX/CFD brokers each only 

added a handful of coins based almost 

entirely on where those coins were in 

the market cap rankings at the time. 

In other words, after all the hype that 

got them there. Also, not knowing 

how to manage risk on this new asset 

class, they just increased their spreads 

and imposed trading curbs, rendering 

these products uncompetitive. Many 

of these CFDs still don’t trade over the 



weekend, which in the 24/7 crypto 

world is completely ludicrous, unless 

you’re the CME. Finally, very few of 

them took crypto seriously enough to 

offer gateways in which traders could 

deposit funds in crypto and use these 

funds to trade on margin. 

THE MISSED OPPORTUNITY OF 

CRYPTO DERIVATIVES 

Between 2014 and 2017, the online 

FX industry had the opportunity to 

corner the market in crypto margin 

trading, but didn’t. Today, the 

daily volumes of crypto derivatives 

dwarf the spot markets, and yet the 

incumbent retail FX industry is not 

responsible for generating these 

volumes. In recent years, crypto 

exchanges have adapted many of the 

business models of the CFD brokers 

(down to the trading competitions and 

bonuses) to boost the volumes of their 

own leveraged derivatives on crypto. 

Binance is now the largest spot crypto 

and crypto derivatives exchange in 

the world by volume, and it was only 

founded in 2017. The aforementioned 

Deribit was only founded in 2016. 

So, we have a situation where the 

incumbents have all the tools and 

business practices in place to offer 

exactly what the market wants 

(margin trading with fair trading 

practices, rapid execution, narrow 

spreads, low fees, large leverage 

ratios, negative balance protection), 

but they have yet to make a dent in 

the crypto world. 

IS IT TOO LATE? 

This is the million dollar question. 

In failing to emerge as the standard 

bearer in crypto derivatives, the online 

CFD/FX market has found itself in a 

position where it has to play catch-up. 

We now have siloed retail markets 

in which your typical stock, FX and 

crypto traders all stick to their own 

types of venue. CFD brokers already 

know this from their experience in 

It really is an evolve or die moment in many quarters of traditional finance 

adding equity and index CFDs. Equities illiquid tokens go to Binance. Even 

traders who actually want to own the existing client bases of the CFD 

a piece of a company are not likely brokers don’t see the value in trading 

to come over to CFDs, but those crypto with them. In fact, finding 

who want to speculate on margin out how many of their clients have 

might. Also, existing CFD traders bought, sold or traded crypto in the 

who have traditionally just traded FX past 4 years with other outfits would 

and commodities can be enticed by a be a fascinating survey to conduct. 

broader CFD offering. 

The results may be quite surprising, 

particularly to business development 

When CFD brokers came to FX, they and dealing departments. 

came from a position of strength. 

They invested in bringing over 

The fact is that crypto isn’t going 

veterans from institutional FX, they anywhere. Each subsequent 4-year 

created marketing content and cycle grows stronger than the last, 

analysis that conveyed a sense of both in terms of retail and institutional 

knowledge and experience. They involvement, as well as technological 

spent years evangelising the merits innovation. This isn’t a flash in the 

of FX trading, from its 24/5 structure pan, it isn’t a speculative bubble at 

as Asian, European and North 

its core, despite always being in the 

American markets come online one midst of one when most people hear 

after the other throughout the day, about it. It’s likely to be the shape 

to its decentralised, over-the-counter of things to come for the trading 

nature. With a few notable exceptions of all asset markets as central bank 

(eToro being one of them), they digital currencies start to emerge 

haven’t done this for crypto. The fact and more of the traditional financial 

that crypto CFDs trade according to system becomes tokenised. The trend 

the same market hours as FX CFDs is plain to see. It really is an adapt 

tells you almost everything you need or die moment in many quarters of 

to know about how crypto has been traditional finance. Despite all this, 

handled by the incumbents. 

we’re still very early in the crypto 

revolution, so there’s still time to 

The result is that new crypto 

correct the mistakes of previous 

investors inevitably find their way to market cycles. Those who learn will 

Coinbase, while those interested in have a seat at the table in years to 

margin trading or purchasing more come, those who don’t, won’t. 


NETWORKS, HOSTING & INFRASTRUCTURE 

Removing opportunity 

bottlenecks in high 

performance FX trading 

INTRODUCTION – FX ISSUES 

AND OPPORTUNITIES 

The past five years have been a time 

of great change in global markets. 

The uncertainty of Brexit, and the 

geo-political shifts associated with the 

American Presidential race, the global 

pandemic, and the circumspection 

around Chinese markets, have all 

presented challenges that have 

catalysed emerging opportunities, as 

well as the technological advances 

necessary to take advantage of these. 

From a technical perspective the 

inexorable march towards the Cloud 

continues apace, with 69 percent 

of respondents to eFX technology 

provider Integral’s FX survey in the 

final quarter of 2020 expecting their 

FX workflows to be either Cloud- or 

Hybrid-based by 2026. The demands 

around connectivity, performance, 

commercial flexibility and technical 

portability are all set to soar as the 

sector moves to satisfy its hunger 

for innovation and quicker access to 

markets. 

Meanwhile, regions such as Singapore 

are responding with steps to 

incentivise trading business within 

their Exchange, giving risk-reduced 

access to the Asia-Pacific region 



(APAC) in its bid to overtake Hong 

Kong and Shanghai as the region’s 

third most important centre for FX 

trading. 

This article will explore the current 

considerations for security, 

performance and cost that businesses 

must face when wishing to expand 

their trading reach, presence and 

success. 

SINGAPORE OPPORTUNITIES 

With EBS closing the Tokyo matching 

engine by the end of 2021, the 

Monetary Authority for Singapore 

aims to make it the leading global 

financial centre in Asia. Several major 

banks and non-bank liquidity providers 

are agreeing to congregate and build 

matching and pricing engines in the 

country as it prepares to become 

the focal point for APAC FX trading 

activity. (See our regional report on 

page 20). This will transform the 

location from a booking centre for 

trades to a key financial hub where 

price discovery and matching actually 

take place, reducing the roundtrip 

latency of trades that would 

normally be routed to Tokyo by 70-80 

milliseconds. 

CEO of infrastructure provider Beeks 

Group, Gordon McArthur explains: 

“Everyone wants a slice of the APAC 

business, and as a relatively new 

venue SG1 is free of a lot of the legacy 

constraints that hamper growth in 

NY4 and LD4. This gives organisations 

the ability to take 

a fresh approach. 

Add to this the tax 

incentives that MAS 

are offering make SGX a very 

attractive option for relocation and 

expansion.” 

Managing Director of MAS Ravi 

Menon asserts: “With strong 

connectivity to South Asia, India, 

Australia, China, Japan and Korea, 

Singapore will become increasingly 

important as a reliable and stable pan- 

Asian financial centre, at the heart of 

a region growing at an average of 5% 

to 6% a year.” 

Additional opportunity for Singapore is 

likely owing to the electronification of 


Removing opportunity bottlenecks in high performance FX trading 

choice of low latency links to London. 

changes in the sector it is essential to 

In light of these geographical 

work with a specialised infrastructure 

differences, it will also be interesting 

and connectivity provider who can 

to observe what impact EBS’ closure 

facilitate all the necessary business 

of the Tokyo matching engine has on 

requirements. 

FX trading activity in the region, with 

Singapore having the opportunity 

IN-HOUSE SOLUTIONS 

to capitalise on EBS’s London-based 

“While the more sophisticated 

matching engine for emerging 

financial institutions might invest 

markets and NDF pairs. 

heavily in increasing their hardware 

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION 

stack in any given location this is a 

major opportunity block,” McArthur 

Gordon McArthur - CEO, Beeks Group 

Connectivity, low latency and security 

are undoubtedly amongst the most 

comments. 

the NDF market and the development 

crucial aspects of an Exchange’s eco- 

Single organisations trying to keep up 

of further on-exchange currency 

system, and entrants to the new and 

with the latest technology in-house 


futures. As these markets develop, 

customers will be increasingly focused 

on the latency differential between 

Asian/Middle Eastern exchanges 

offering futures contracts as well as 

the OTC venues (whose Matching 

Engines are still primarily out of 

region) offering NDF trading. 

Ironically, there is also an element of 

trans-Atlantic rivalry that plays out in 

the competition between Singapore 

and Tokyo. Tokyo is best placed for 

low latency connectivity to Chicago 

and New Jersey due to its latitude, 

having the shortest communications 

path to these financial centres. 

By contrast, Singapore has much 

lower latency links to South Asia as 

appealing Singapore market need to 

understand the best way of achieving 

these as efficiently and cost-effectively 

as possible. 

“Latency is the killer of FX profitability, 

so being in the same location as 

the matching and pricing engines is 

key,” McArthur adds. “Buy side and 

sell side participants need private 

direct networking with each other, 

the engines and with their tech 

providers.” 

Nevertheless ambitious companies 

need to be able to spin up their 

infrastructure easily and in a 

commercially sensible way, ideally 

across all 4 major trading centres 

will naturally compromise on some 

area of their implementation, security 

and performance monitoring. Given 

the pace of change in the sector it 

is rapidly becoming unsustainable 

and very expensive to manage 

proprietary connectivity, compute and 

performance monitoring. 

“If there is no guarantee that your 

platform is performing as it should 

you could be running the risk of stale 

pricing,” says McArthur. 

In addition long term infrastructure 

contracts over years and years are no 

longer viable since they prohibit rapid 

expansion. Traditional commercial 

models for technical infrastructure 

well as benefiting from a broader 

globally. Given the fast moving 

provision also typically confer the risk 

onto the purchasing organisation, 

Source: FX Markets survey commissioned by Integral March 2021 

which does little to build confidence in 

the platform. 

“To benefit fully within a dynamic 

and fast-moving environment trading 

organisations need to focus on 

what they do best, which typically 

isn’t the support and monitoring 

of the technology,” says McArthur. 

High performance FX trading is 

best achieved through specialist 

partnerships that can quickly mobilise 

to remove bottlenecks and get quick 

results. 



OUTSOURCING BENEFITS 

Slowness in any way, shape or form 

is clearly anathema in FX trading. 

And if this is more of a risk with inhouse 

infrastructure provision then 

considering an outsourcing model is 

one option to mitigate this. This is 

pertinent in the case of Singapore, 

since it is a new location that 

companies would have to build out 

from scratch. In this scenario, third 

party management of an established 

and fully populated secure private 

cloud infrastructure within the data 

centre co-location may prove to be 

an attractive enabling route to new 

business. 

CAPEX TO OPEX 

In the current climate organisations 

are looking for speed to market 

and the ability to move to new 

territories quickly. Putting together 

a Cost Benefit Analysis to justify the 

build out is too time-consuming. 

Furthermore the trend away from 

long term contracts that take years 

to construct is driving organisations 

to seek short term commitments. 

Head of Sales for Beeks Group, Alan 

Samuel states: “With a properly 

geared up Managed Service Partner, 

organisations can spin up Proof 

of Concept trading environments 

in new territories that can quickly 

give a view of ROI and time to 

money. This approach permits full 

testing of trading strategies prior 

to production, without typical 

contractual restraints. Outsourcing 

can also introduce the possibility 

of flexible OPEX costing models 

which enable organisations to scale 

up and down as their business 

requires. Young companies can 

start small and grow, while 

established institutions can have 

tighter financial control over their 

expansion activity, as well as 

quicker wins.” 

BEST IN CLASS TECHNOLOGY, 

SECURITY AND PERFORMANCE 

The economies of scale that Managed 

Service Providers are able to achieve 

with multiple clients mean that 

there can be a consistent specialist 

investment in technology. But the 

most decisive factor in outsourced 

capability according to Gordon 

McArthur must be security and 

performance monitoring. 

“Security protocols and performance 

analytics are the most important thing 

for IT to think about,” says McArthur. 

“There are so many layers involved, 

including processes, procedures, 

certifications, specific software and 

hardware as well as man-power. 

Organisations need a dedicated 

security team monitoring 24/7 against 

cyber-attacks, Denial of Service and 

any incidents and events on the 

periphery of the network.” 

Also of utmost importance are bestin-class 

performance monitoring tools 

and expertise, which can be difficult 

to achieve in-house. Having the 

ability to monitor connectivity, third 

party networks, bandwidth utilisation 

and micro-bursts of network activity 

ensure that prices are optimal, trades 

are made at the expected calibre and 

any third party liabilities can be swiftly 

pin-pointed. 

Alan Samuel - Head of Sales, Beeks Group 

Trouble-shooting and issue resolution 

can be extremely time consuming 

and costly without collating accurate 

recordings and evidence. This needs 

proper resourcing and focus to 

enhance trading confidence in the 

platform. 

“It can be quite shocking how 

many organisations bury their head 

in the sand and overlook these 

components,” comments McArthur. 

CHECKLIST 

There is no doubt that a dedicated 

Managed Service Provider operating 

economies of scale and an already 

built-out presence in all the 

significant trading exchanges globally 

offers a more attractive proposition to 

trading organisations that reinventing 

Source: FX Markets survey commissioned by Integral March 2021 


Removing opportunity bottlenecks in high performance FX trading 

the wheel in-house. All that remains 

is the question of how to choose 

such an outsourcing partner. Gordon 

McArthur warns against selecting the 

cheapest service provider, and instead 

recommends undertaking a thorough 

exercise in due diligence, focusing on 

the following aspects: 

Source: Z/Yen Statista 2021 


1. Key differentiators of real-time 

monitoring and measuring 

performance 

2. Proof of security certifications and 

ISO 

3. Company profile 

4. Number of engineers and 

dedicated security personnel 

5. Board Level security representation 

6. 24/7 support procedures and SLAs 

7. Documented security function 

8. Number and profile of security and 

performance monitoring tools in 

place 

9. Evidence of funding and liquidity 

from the company balance sheet 

10. Profile of company ownership 

11. Communication protocols around 

issue reporting 

12. Ability to check historic 

performance 

13. Transparency and honesty 

FINAL WORD 

Another interesting line of enquiry 

when examining MSP options is to 

investigate their track record during 

the COVID pandemic. How many data 

centres did they build out? What is 

their lead time for new turn-ups and 

configurations? How long do they 

expect to take to build out a new Data 

Centre? 

“Statistical SLAs and actual 

achievements are vital indicators,” 

says McArthur. “And when all the 

criteria have been satisfied, be sure 

to ask for references or case studies 

from the MSP’s existing clients to 

get a true picture of their agility and 

responsiveness.” 

ABOUT BEEKS 

Beeks is a leading managed cloud computing, connectivity and 

analytics provider in the financial markets. The Beeks Group 

infrastructure comprises a growing global network of data 

centres that allow direct, secure access to key financial hubs and 

exchange locations. Beeks help customers understand their ROI 

both quickly and economically by adopting a fully OPEX based 

pricing model. Their continuous addition of capacity in the global 

market is driven by customer demand and market trends. 

Beeks are continuing to increase their presence in the Asia Pacific 

region (APAC) with additional data centres as well as securing a 

joint venture with the Singapore Exchange SGX. 

The Beeks SGX and SG1 IaaS solutions provide rapid time to 

market and reduce sizeable barriers to entry, while providing bestin-class 

resiliency and security. By utilising both Virtual Private 

Server (VPS) and Bare Metal Server solutions, Beeks provides 

entry level access to both UAT and Production environments 

either directly in SGX, or by connecting privately from the Beeks 

infrastructure in SG1. 

As well as Singapore, Beeks is also live in Hong Kong, Tokyo and 

Sydney, allowing customers a variety of trading opportunities 

across both OTC and Exchange based markets in the APAC region. 


Neutral Data. 

Clear Conversations. 

We’ve spent years building Data Source the right way. The result is this. 

A next-generation cloud-based business intelligence toolkit that stores 

your quote and trade data, and transforms it into Opportunity Analytics. 

Designed to facilitate transparent conversations between brokers and 

liquidity providers. 

onezero.com/DataSource | info@onezero.com 

oneZero develops multi-asset class trading technology, which empowers financial 

institutions and brokers to compete in today's ever-changing global markets. JUNE 2021 e-FOREX 63

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