FX week in review: eToro names COO, Trading212 CEO to StoneX, record volumes
More than on most weeks, FX industry news over the past seven days was all about senior executive moves – with all the key comings and goings being reported exclusively at FNG.
Who from outside the FX industry did eToro turn to, to be the company’s #2 behind CEO Yoni Assia?
Why did longtime Trading212 CEO Nick Saunders move to rival StoneX / Gain Capital? And what will he be doing for his new employer?
Who is OANDA’s new Head of Europe?
Who did RegTech firm Muinmos hire from Finalto, as the company’s new CTO?
Which executive moved from Tickmill to NAGA.com?
Answers to these questions and lots more appeared first or exclusively this week at FNG. Some of the top FX industry news stories to appear this week on FNG included:
eToro names former Israel Banks Supervisor Hedva Ber as Deputy CEO/COO. Reported First at FNG… Retail FX broker eToro took another major step toward preparing to be a publicly traded company, announcing that the company has hired Dr. Hedva Ber as eToro’s new Deputy CEO and COO. Dr. Ber, one of the most experienced and respected banking executives in Israel, will be in charge of eToro’s operational infrastructure, its corporate governance and compliance, and serve as a strong #2 in the company to founder and CEO Yoni Assia. In some respects she will be replacing the role of Yoni’s brother and eToro co-founder Ronen Assia, who left his day-to-day role at eToro last year to join fintech venture capital firm Team8. eToro announced plans to go public in the US at a valuation of over $10 billion last month, via a combination with a SPAC, FinTech Acquisition V.
Exclusive: ex Trading212 CEO Nick Saunders joins StoneX to head Cash Equities. FNG Exclusive… Following up on our earlier exclusive report that longtime Trading212 CEO Nick Saunders had left the company, FNG has learned that he has already landed at his new destination, StoneX (NASDAQ:SNEX). StoneX of course acquired Gain Capital along with its popular Retail FX and CFD brands Forex.com and City Index in mid 2020 for $236 million, and Mr. Saunders will be working with a number of colleagues from both those units to head up a new Cash Equities and non-leveraged products business for the company. The new Cash Equities team marks somewhat of a reunion for Nick Saunders and his aforementioned new StoneX colleagues, as all worked together about 10 years back at IG Group.
OANDA names TMS Brokers CEO Marcin Niewiadomski as Head of Europe. Following its recent purchase of Polish FX and CFDs broker Dom Maklerski TMS Brokers SA, OANDA has announced the appointment of TMS Brokers’ CEO Marcin Niewiadomski as its new Head of Europe, responsible for driving the firm’s continued growth throughout the EU27 countries. He will also continue in his current role as Chief Executive Officer of TMS from his base in Warsaw, and report in to David Hodge at OANDA London. Marcin Niewiadomski has spent six years at the helm of TMS, managing the firm’s digital transformation and extending both its product offering and geographical footprint. However, he has also worked with several other financial institutions over the years including Link 4, which was a part of the RSA Group, Provident Polska, Kredyt Bank (KBC Bank), GMAC Bank and BRE Bank Securities.
Muinmos hires longtime CFH/Finalto exec Emil Kongelys as CTO. RegTech solutions firm Muinmos has announced that Emil Kongelys, former Integration Team Lead at Finalto, has joined the firm as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Emil Kongelys has over 15 years’ experience as an IT engineer in the financial services sector including almost a decade at Finalto (formerly CFH Clearing), with responsibility for building and evolving the Prime of Prime brokerage’s proprietary trading system and leading the integrations team. When he joined CFH, he worked with Remonda Kirketerp-Moller, now Founder and CEO of Muinmos, as she was one of CFH’s Co-Founders and Executive Director. His newly created role at Muinmos will involve ongoing development of its market leading Regulatory Onboarding Engine.
Exness March 2021 volumes hit record $930.6 billion. Next stop – a trillion! Exness took a major step toward becoming the first Retail FX and CFDs broker to top $1 trillion in monthly volumes since the mid-2010s heydays of FXCM and Forex.com, with March client trading volume coming in at a record (and whopping!) $930.6 billion. That eclipses Exness’ previous record of $785.1 billion set in March 2020 – driven then by volatility in the wake of the unfolding COVID pandemic and subsequent market crash and recovery – by a nice margin of 18.5%. Exness also saw a record number of active traders during the month – 187,609 – easily topping the company’s previous record (last month) of 178,175.
Exclusive: Petros Kalaitzis leaves Tickmill for NAGA as Head Of Customer Experience. FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that Cyprus based Tickmill executive Petros Kalaitzis has left the company, and joined Retail FX brokerage rival NAGA Group. At NAGA Mr. Kalaitzis will be the company’s new Head Of Customer Experience. Petros Kalaitzis joined Tickmill in 2018 in sales, and was promoted in 2019 to Head of Client Services. Prior to Tickmill he worked at Saxo Bank for three years in the Copenhagen broker’s Cyprus office.