FX week in review: Playtech in play, Plus500 sponsorship, Saxo and ATFX results

Gerald Segal 0 Comments August 22, 2020

How did Markets.com and TradeTech parent Playtech find itself in the crosshairs of an activist shareholder, looking to broker a deal between Playtech and DraftKings?

Which other top-league European soccer team will don Plus500’s logo on its jersey?

How did the latest results from ATFX and Saxo Bank look?

Which Retail FX broker got a South Africa FSCA license?

Answers to these questions and a whole lot more appeared first or exclusively this week at FNG. Some of the top forex industry news items to appear on the pages of FNG this past week included:

Exclusive: Playtech put in play by activist investor. FNG Exclusive… Some comments made late Friday by a known gaming activist investor sent Playtech shares soaring in US over-the-counter market trading. (Will be interesting to see how Playtech stock trades when markets open shortly in London this morning!). Playtech – parent company of forex B2B brands TradeTech / CFH and Retail FX broker Markets.com – seems to be now “in play”. What exactly was suggested by the activist investor? How much Playtech stock does he own? Get all the details on this story and more, exclusively at FNG.

Plus500 signs (another!) front-of-shirt deal. Plus500 sure does like its soccer sponsorships! Fans of the beautiful game across Europe will be seeing a lot more of the Plus500 logo in the coming years, with the FCA regulated broker signing yet another front-of-shirt sponsorship with a top-flight European football club. Who now will (also) be displaying the Plus500 logo on their shirts? How many years? Read on…

Exclusive: ATFX UK grows Revenues 4x to £2.2 million in 2019. FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that the FCA-licensed, London based UK arm of global Retail FX broker ATFX has increased its presence during its first full year operation. AT Global Markets (UK) Limited, or ATFX UK, posted Revenues of £2.23 million (USD $2.9 million) in the year ended October 31, 2019, versus just £480,000 in 2018. The company’s net loss shrunk from £1.06 million in 2018 to £384,000 last year. Client assets held at ATFX UK grew to £1.67 million as at year-end 2019, from £307,000 in 2018. During the year the company’s Cayman Islands parent company AT Global Group Limited kicked in an additional £1 million of capital into ATFX UK.

Saxo Bank rides the trading wave to record 6mo 2020 results. It has been somewhat interesting reading the financial reports of various Retail and Institutional FX and CFD platforms in recent weeks. If ever the saying “a rising tide lifts all boats” were relevant to mention about the FX industry, the first six months of 2020 would be it. Market volatility was at never-seen-before levels in virtually all traded markets – equities (down 30%+ then back to record highs), commodities (negative oil prices, record gold prices), and of course FX. And with sports bettors shut down for the better part of three months in 1H 2020 and looking for “action”, the online financial trading sector had the perfect storm for a record setting pace in the first half of 2020. Copenhagen based Saxo Bank was no exception, with the company’s revenues for six-months 2020 nearly topping that of all of 2019.

Exclusive: Arab focused Retail FX broker Q8Trade gets South Africa license. FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that Retail FX brokerage group Q8Trade, which runs the offshore q8trade.com website, has received a license from the South Africa FSCA. Q8Trade is controlled by Kuwait based brokerage Q8 Securities (formerly known as Al-Arabi). Seychelles incorporated Marketfinancials which operates Q8Trade offers MT4/MT5 platform based trading in forex and CFDs on stocks, commodities and indices, and services primarily an Arabic speaking clietele. The company also offers Islamic accounts, and auto trading using the DupliTrade system.