FX week in review: FXCM hacked, eToro crypto closeout, CFH CEO leaves, Cappitech sold
A very busy week of Forex Industry News saw FXCM get hacked with some client data compromised, eToro take several steps to stem a tidal wave of crypto traders, and the sale of Cappitech – long a provider to regtech to the Retail FX sector.
ThinkMarkets ramped up its legal battle with the ISAM Capital group, suing a former employee who moved to IS Risk Analytics.
There were also lots of executive moves as FX companies of all stripes line up to prepare for the new year.
And as usual, all the top stories appeared first or exclusively at FNG.
Some of the top FX industry news stories to appear this past week on FNG included:
Exclusive: FXCM reports cyber attack, data copied. FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that Retail FX and CFDs broker FXCM has reported a successful cyber security breach of the company’s servers to the Israel Securities Authority. FXCM reported that on Sunday morning (January 10) unidentified sources broke into the company’s servers and database, and successfully copied data including recorded conversations between company representatives and clients. The Securities Authority said that it was working closely with FXCM from which it demanded all information it had regarding the cyber attack. Israel takes cyber incidents very seriously.
eToro closes out European leveraged crypto traders. After upping the minimum first deposit for new accounts to $1,000 to stem flow of crypto traders (as was exclusively reported at FNG last weekend), eToro (Europe) Ltd, the Cyprus based arm of Israeli Retail FX, CFDs and cryptocurrency broker eToro which serves the company’s EU customers, sent a note out late Friday afternoon to clients that they had about four hours to increase margin to 100% on all crypto CFD positions. Any open positions left with any leverage would be closed out – and indeed many were, as of 21:00 GMT Friday. The move was apparently made as eToro became unable to properly hedge highly levered client positions in Bitcoin, ETH and other cryptocurrencies.
IHS Markit buys regtech provider Cappitech. Financial data and analytics giant IHS Markit (NYSE:INFO) has announced that it has acquired compliance technology provider Cappitech to expand its suite of global, multi-asset class transaction regulatory reporting offerings to the financial industry. No financial terms of the transaction were announced. Cappitech, a privately held Israeli company, provides robust regulatory reporting, best execution analysis and business intelligence solutions, allowing customers to efficiently comply with transaction reporting regulations across multiple jurisdictions in one place. The company counts a number of Retail FX brokers among its client base including Axi, eToro, AvaTrade, and Darwinex.
ThinkMarkets sues former employee for taking sensitive emails to rival IS. The legal battle between Retail FX broker ThinkMarkets and the ISAM Capital Markets Group has further heated up, with ThinkMarkets suing a former employee who recently left the company for ISAM’s IS Risk Analytics. Separately, ThinkMarkets and ISAM are involved in another legal battle, stemming from ThinkMarkets’ 2017 sale of its B2B arm ThinkLiquidity to ISAM, to form ISAM unit IS Risk Analytics. ISAM is suing ThinkMarkets in UK court, claiming that ThinkMarkets is not sending its trades to ISAM group units for execution, as part of an exclusivity clause in the sale agreement. In the latest legal salvo between the two companies, ThinkMarkets is suing former IT employee James Sorenson, alleging that he went to work for IS Risk Analytics taking with him proprietary information which he refuses to return.
This week also saw a flood of financial results for a number of Retail FX firms, including:
- Exclusive: ETX Capital revenues £21M in 2019, up to £32M in 2020.
- Swissquote shares hit all-time high after posting record 2020 results.
- NAGA Group shares up 12% after posting 2021 revenue target of €50M.
- Playtech financials division Finalto has “challenging” 2H-2020.
- Exclusive: ITI Capital revenue down 24% in 2019, £2.8M loss.
- Exclusive: Fortrade sees 12% decline in 2019 revenue to £15.5M.
Among the top FX industry executive moves reported this week were…
❑ First at FNG: P&L’s Julie Ros resurfaces at Dmitri Galinov’s 24 Exchange.
❑ Marc Levin leaves CFH Group to become COO of United Fintech.
❑ Exclusive: IS Prime alum Richard Maguire joins Britannia Global.
❑ oneZero appoints Kx Systems exec Stuart Brock to head Europe institutional sales.
❑ Exclusive: Saxo Bank hires Line Vesth to head ESG efforts.
❑ Exclusive: M4Markets adds Nikolas Fragkos as Head Of Development.