FX week in review: EU passporting rules reviewed, executive moves (LCG, ADSS, OvalX, BUX, Spotware), United Fintech acquires
The news cycle was certainly slowing this past week as the FX and CFDs industry headed toward a much-looked-forward-to winter holidays break with the calendar turning to the second half of December.
But there were still a number of pre-year-end executive moves to report, another acquisition, and a fairly quiet announcement from ESMA which might end up affecting the way that brokers can offer services across country borders within the EU.
Some of the most read and commented-on FX industry news stories to appear over the past seven days on FNG included:
ESMA guides on passporting of financial services across the EU. Pan European financial regulatory body ESMA has published a Supervisory Briefing to ensure convergence across the European Union (EU) in the supervision of the cross-border activities of investment firms. ESMA said that the free provision of services in the EU rests on the supervision of the home national regulators (NCAs) and on the cooperation between home and host supervisors. To this end, the briefing covers areas including authorisation of firms with cross-border plans, and processing of passport notifications.
United Fintech acquires Cobalt. Christian Frahm’s fintech umbrella firm United Fintech announces the 100% acquisition of Cobalt, the provider of critical risk and data services to the FX and digital asset markets. The acquisition elevates United Fintech’s position as the leading end-to-end solution connecting financial institutions with innovative fintechs to accelerate digital transformation. This is United Fintech’s fifth acquisition since launching in 2020 and has rapidly scaled its team to 150 across New York, London and Singapore.
Binance facing billions in net outflows in FTX bankruptcy aftermath. The crypto world was rocked again earlier this week with the arrest in the Bahamas of former FTX CEO and crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried, and the ripple effect from FTX’s bankruptcy keeps expanding. A number of leading news outlets have been reporting over the past few hours that FTX rival and once-touted saviour Binance has been experiencing its own troubles, with the crypto exchange facing supposed multi-billion dollar withdrawals.
Exness volumes cool 5% in November 2022 to $2.4 trillion. After setting an all-time-best month for a Retail multi-asset broker in August 2022 at a staggering $2.811 trillion of client trading volumes, Exness saw a slight dip in activity during November 2022, for the third consecutive month. In total, Exness clients traded $2.405 trillion worth of CFD products in November 2022, down 5% from $2.530 trillion in October 2022, and 14% off the aforementioned August record of $2.811 trillion. However Exness has now seen nine consecutive months of $2 trillion+ in trading volumes, cementing its position as the world’s largest online broker serving retail clients.
Top FX industry executive moves reported at FNG this week included:
❑ Exclusive: LCG hires Dave Worsfold as CEO, adds other execs.
❑ Steen Blaafalk retires from Saxo Bank.
❑ Exclusive: Ella Hacer Gumus leaves OANDA, joins OvalX in Affiliate Marketing.
❑ Exclusive: BUX hires Fxview compliance exec Christopher Diamantides in Cyprus.
❑ Exclusive: ADSS promotes Hasan Hamd to Director of Institutional Sales.
❑ Exclusive: BridgerPay Head Of Marketing Laoura Salveta leaves to join Red Acre.
❑ Exclusive: CMC Markets’ General Counsel Patrick Davis departs.
❑ Exclusive: Spotware Head of Marketing Aris Christoforou departs.