FX week in review: EC Markets launches, IG’s $1B buy, eToro’s IT problems, CMC rebrands FX B2B

Gerald Segal 0 Comments January 23, 2021

This week had it all in FX industry news – the launch of a new FCA regulated FX/CFDs brand, the rebranding of a well-heeled institutional FX business, a $1 billion (!!) acquisition and tech problems at a leading Retail FX broker.

And all the top stories were reported first or exclusively at FNG.

Who bought GCM Prime? And to what did it rebrand?

How did CMC Markets rebrand its institutional FX B2B business?

What company did IG Group buy for $1 billion?

What tech problems beset eToro?

The answers to these questions and a whole lot more appeared this week on FNG. Some of the top FX industry news stories to appear this past week on FNG included:

Exclusive: GCM Prime bought by Chinese investor, rebranded as EC Markets. FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that London based Chinese entrepreneur Xiaoliang Lyu has acquired FCA regulated GCM Prime Ltd and its assets. The business has been renamed EC Markets, and after recently (re)launching an online brokerage business the company plans to market actively starting later in Q1/Q2. The revamped EC Markets plans to focus mainly on professional and institutional traders in the UK and the Far East. The new ownership has brought in experienced FX industry executive Matthew Smith as CEO of the (re-)newed operation.

CMC Markets re-brands B2B business unit as CMC Markets Connect. CMC Markets, a leading global provider of online trading and technology solutions, has today announced the launch of CMC Markets Connect, the re-branded institutional division of their business. CMC Connect provides a range of services to direct users such as hedge funds, family offices and smaller banks as well as those who offer trading facilities to their own retail clients. CMC Markets has already been operating in the B2B space for the past 20 years. The new brand will come with a shift in focus for the business as CMC Connect becomes a true liquidity provider in their own right. This will be backed-up by a series of innovations which will be coming through over the next 12-18 months.

Exclusive: eToro experiencing tech problems with customer login and deposits. FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that Retail FX, CFDs, and crypto broker eToro has seen a number of technology problems today with its customer platform. Soon after 12:00 noon GMT the company reported to clients that the deposit function was unavailable on the eToro platform. The company said that its teams were working to resolve this as quickly as possible, and the company apologized for the inconvenience caused. Less than 30 minutes later eToro noted that some of its users were experiencing intermittent login issues. The company tweeted that its IT team was working to resolve the issue ASAP, and indeed after less than 10 minutes the company posted that the issue was resolved. However the deposit issue persisted for more than two and a half hours.

IG Group to acquire tastytrade in $1bn deal. Electronic trading major IG Group Holdings plc (LON:IGG) today announced the proposed acquisition of tastytrade, Inc., a high growth US online brokerage and trading education platform with a leading position in US listed derivatives. Total consideration of $1.0 billion will be paid to tastytrade’s shareholders, comprising $300 million in cash and the issuance of 61.0 million IG shares, valued at $700 million. The cash requirement is to be funded by £150 million of new debt facilities with the balance from IG’s own cash resources. For the financial year to 31 December 2020, tastytrade delivered revenue of $116.2 million (up 44% year-over-year).