Oanda
Gavin Bambury has been named CEO of Oanda. Based in London, he will also serve as a director on the Oanda Global Corporation Board. With more than 25 years’ experience in the financial technology and trading sector, Bambury has worked in a variety of leadership roles including Citibank and Deutsche Bank and joins after less […]
Oanda will now offer forward rates to corporate clients around via its Exchange Rates API.
This new data set aims to provide corporate treasurers and finance directors with an accurate, trustworthy view of the forwards market, offering over 360 forward rate currency pairs – which Oanda claims is more than any other currency data feed on the market.
Data is delivered via Oanda’s API and can be integrated into any treasury management system, enterprise resource planning system or billing software solution.
“Having been a trusted source of FX data for more than 20 years, Oanda is uniquely positioned to create a market consensus despite the decentralised treasury market, enabling us to deliver reliable forward rates to our clients.
Private equity group CVC Capital Partners’ Asia Fund IV has had an offer accepted to acquire all of the outstanding equity of online retail trading technology and analytics provider Oanda Global Corporation.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed and it is subject to regulatory approval. Under the new ownership, Oanda will continue to be led by CEO, Vatsa Narasimha.
Siddharth Patel, senior managing director at CVC, says, “We look forward to working closely with Vatsa and his team as we help support Oanda, especially in Asia, in making strategic acquisitions and in investing to further broaden its product set.”
Oanda has announced the integration of Chasing Returns’ risk management technology into its trading platform, meaning its retail clients will now have access to the Trading Performance Management portal, powered by Chasing Returns.
Drawing on behavioural science, the Trading Performance Management portal provides what the firm terms an in-depth view into individual trading habits, enabling Oanda’s clients to take personal analytics to better understand their behavioural biases such as whether they are more successful on a certain day or with a certain product.
Oanda has released a new version of its Exchange Rates API, which has been updated to include what the firm calls “real-time” currency rates.
The rates available on the new API are updated every five seconds, providing, the firm says, a more accurate reflection of current market prices.
The firm says the new API aims to provide corporate treasurers and finance directors with a greater degree of visibility over the FX market, helping them mitigate risk, reduce currency exposure and improve cash flow.
FX markets have settled with sterling some 1.5% lower after the shock exit poll indicated a hung parliament and analysts are saying that further losses could be possible.
“It’s not looking good for Theresa May, who appears to have lost the Conservative’s majority in Parliament,” writes Kathleen Brooks, director at City Index. She adds, however, that in 2015 the exit poll also suggested that the Tories wouldn’t win an overall majority, but they won with a slim majority, “so there is a chance that Theresa May could still hang onto Number 10”.
Retail FX trading platform Oanda has integrated its Algo Lab solution with QuantConnect’s open-source, cloud-based algorithmic trading engine in order to offer its clients the ability to research, build, test and deploy their own FX trading algorithms directly from the Oanda platform.
The firms say the agreement provides Oanda clients with access to a community of algorithmic and quantitative traders, as well as series of online trading tutorials that could help add a new dimension of discipline to their trading strategy .
FXCM’s forced exit from the US leaves only two major retail OTC FX-focused brokerages in the market. Galen Stops talks to the CEOs of these firms about what this means for the industry.
“The retail foreign exchange market has suffered a less than exemplary reputation for some time now,” concedes Vatsa Narasimha, CEO of Oanda.
The latest blow to the industry’s reputation comes as the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and National Futures Association (NFA) concluded that FXCM had defrauded its US customers, ordering it to withdraw from doing business in the country and fining the firm and its founding partners a total of $7 million.
Oanda’s board of directors has appointed Vatsa Narasimha, formerly its CFO, as the new CEO of the firm.
Narasimha succeeds Ed Eger, who will remain at Oanda to support Narasimha during a transition period.
“I would first like to thank Ed for his tremendous leadership at Oanda. As CEO, Ed took a technology-driven approach to growing our services, increasing our market share, establishing record revenue and client growth, and taking customer and employee satisfaction to all-time highs. On behalf of the Board and our group of talented employees, we thank him for shaping Oanda into the business it is today,” says Kittu Kolluri, chairman of Oanda.
Neil McDonald has joined Oanda as global head of trading and quantitative analytics.
Based in New York, McDonald will be responsible for driving the strategic growth of Oanda’s electronic trading business, as well as leading the global trading, quantitative analytics and research groups.
Ed Eger, president and CEO of Oanda Corporation, says: “Neil’s 30 years’ experience in trading and the financial services sector is a tremendous addition to Oanda’s leadership. With Neil joining the team, I know we can continue to deliver the best execution and trading experience for clients across the globe.”
