Market access through the latest technology: Q&A with FXCM Pro

Submitted 10/02/2021 - 6:33am -

SPONSORED ARTICLE

FXCM Pro offers wholesale execution and liquidity solutions for retail brokers, hedge funds and emerging market banks. The firm’s relationships with tier 1 banks and non-bank liquidity providers, prime broker relationships and technology vendors provide its customers with market access on an unrivalled scale.

2021 marks 15 years since the company’s inception. We talk to Mario Luis Sanchez Wandemberg (pictured), Managing Director and Global Head of Sales, to learn more about its capabilities, how the company has evolved in recent years, and supporting clients through a period of unprecedented challenges.

Mario, you have worked in the FX market in various roles for over two decades. What is it about this market and industry that you enjoy?

Since joining FXCM Pro in 2011, I’ve seen first-hand the major changes that have transformed the market, including innovations in digitisation along with the ever-increasing size of the market.

Every day is different, I get to interact with different people and cultures from all around the world. I think this, together with the excitement of the job itself, makes reaching your goals in a super competitive industry with massive turnover and record daily volumes a great challenge, and the perfect environment for constant improvement. 

What types of customers does the business serve, and what is your key service offering?

FXCM Pro serves a range of retail brokers, banks, venues, prop trading funds, small hedge funds, family offices and high and medium frequency funds in all global regions. The needs of our clients are more diverse. The goal, therefore, is to provide tailored and differentiated liquidity and broking solutions to meet their requirements.

Given it’s the 15-year anniversary of FXCM Pro this year, how has the FX industry changed in this time and how has FXCM Pro adapted?

FX trading has come a long way since our inception 15 years ago. The changing market structure and rapid adoption of technology have lowered barriers to enter the market and made trading accessible to a more diverse range of institutions and customers.

To ensure we continue to align with our clients’ objectives, we have made a lot of positive changes to our technology offering in the last few years. A few examples include our recent collaborations with Integral, TrueFX, PrimeXM, Gold-I, Itexsys, Tools 4 Brokers, FX Cubic and PXM. These demonstrate our commitment to providing our customers with advanced technology and enhanced opportunities.

We’ve also consolidated the existing foundations of our business. This included a fresh, objective look at our internal structure and operations, while also strengthening and enhancing our teams’ skillset and knowledge.

Are there any niche areas that you consider to be a particular strength?

We have up to date technology available to ensure our customers can enjoy the fastest connectivity possible to improve their trading opportunities. Our balance sheet allows us to offer large NOP, soft NOP and overnight loss limit on a case-by-case basis.

We also see customer experience as one of our most important values. We sit with our clients to understand their pain points and work out ways to address them. FXCM’s global office network and round-the-clock coverage mean clients always feel supported. So, whether it relates to credit access, net-open positions, regulatory reporting or API support, we always have a team able to help them.

You’ve onboarded a number of new partnerships in 2020. Please tell us a little about them.

Last year was very busy for us, but we have cultivated a whole ecosystem of market-leaders in order to maximise our offering.

Your Bourse provides liquidity aggregation and a risk management platform for MT4/MT5 brokers with hosting in Equinix data centres. Through this collaboration, our clients will have some of the latest innovative technology as well as greater flexibility when accessing multi-asset liquidity.

With Tradesocio’s Investor Trading Platform, we are providing clients with accurate real-time data, reporting tools and advanced infrastructure for trading. The platform is fully customisable and can be scaled in line with a broker’s growth requirements, without disruption to its services.

In August, our partnership with Devexperts went a step further as we started to provide liquidity to their DXTrade platform. Through this partnership, we can ensure that new entrants into the broker market are able to access world-leading liquidity from FXCM Pro through a truly innovative trading platform.

August also saw us up partner up with Centroid, which provided us with access to their all-in-one suite of trading technology to manage and monitor risk, optimise execution, and observe regulatory requirements through automated reporting – all from a single framework.

Finally, in November we also partnered with oneZero and became a part of its Hub Infrastructure, helping us further enhance the standard of trading technology available to both our clients.

In 2019, FXCM Pro signed up with a new partner, FlexTrade. What do you expect to achieve from this relationship in the long-term?

Following our partnership with FlexTrade, we‘ve integrated MaxxTrader, their high-performance execution and order management system. This system supplements FXCM’s existing liquidity and execution solutions, giving a significant edge in areas such as bank and non-bank liquidity customisation, connectivity between market makers and takers, reporting and measuring best execution.

This partnership also increases operational efficiency and enables institutional FX clients in all global regions to access FXCM’s institutional services through global data centres, including NY4, LD4 and TY3. This provides our clients with further reduced latency and faster execution. 

As we begin a new decade, what do you think will be the key factors driving market evolution?

The ongoing pandemic has thrown up a lot of challenges, but we’ve really taken them in our stride. Despite the shift to working from home and the disruption in the market, our technology has meant that we have able to continue serving clients seamlessly in this new normal. We firmly believe technology is the key to our market.

FXCM Pro offering and services are intended for institutional and professional clients. Trading on margin carries risk.

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