AUTOMATED TRADING: Integral Development Corporation said it is launching an online service for institutional investment managers that will “set a new standard for fairness and efficiencies in netting as well as process automation.”
The new currency trading system, called InvestorFX, is hosted by Integral and aims at delivering best prices on the execution of trades, reliable netting of transactions with counterparties and efficient operation.
In the netting service, managers have a choice of different netting plans and all relevant details are displayed in an easy to view manner.
In the execution service, algorithms take care of trades across multiple liquidity sites and pricing tiers.
In operations, the entire process is managed from desktop computers, from importing a trade list to allocating currencies back into funds.
Integral operates FX Grid, a global trading network.
EXECUTION CONSULTANTS: The “execution consultant” is coming to foreign exchange trading by institutions, according to Laurie J. Berke of the industry consultancy Tabb Group.
That’s because high-frequency strategies, she says, have started to show up on some interdealer and multibank trading platforms. These have “wreaked havoc with traditional bank pricing models. ‘
The “execution consultant” will help institutional trading firms figure out where and who an order came from and how fast the next one would come.
High-frequency, high-turnover market makers and hedge funds first showed up on interdealer platforms BrokerTec and eSpeed. The banks, in turn, tried to improve quote turnaround times on the “request for quote” platforms Bloomberg and Tradeweb.
That, she says, means “the buy-side trader will look to his sell-side coverage partners to guide him through this maze of complexity on the path to optimal implementation,’’ just as has occurred in equities trading.
PEOPLE: Dino Kos has been appointed Head of Global Regulatory Affairs at CLS Group. Kos came on board Monday (February 25) and will report to chief executive David Puth at the provider of risk mitigation sevices.
Kos brings 25 years of industry and regulatory experience to CLS. From 1985 to 2007 he worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) in a variety of regulatory and market roles. As Executive Vice President of the Markets Group, he was responsible for open market operations, foreign exchange trading, treasury auctions, the discount window, and the correspondent banking services provided by the FRBNY to other central banks.
Kos joins CLS from Hamiltonian Associates, a specialized macro advisory research firm which he co-founded., working with buy-side investors across global economic, currency and fixed income markets.
Kos will be based in New York.
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Paul Thomas has been named senior vice president of institutional sales at Alpari (US), a supplier of online foreign exchange trading services.
Thomas will be responsible for overseeing Alpari’s new institutional initiatives in trade execution by voice, in Alpari’s QuantumFX division.
“Enabling voice execution is a natural extension of the QuantumFX business. We believe it will bring an ease and confidence to trading that can only be achieved by incorporating a human element,” said Jermaine Harmon, CEO of Alpari (US).
Thomas has more than 16 years of experience at top banks such as Citigroup and BNP Paribas and will be based in New York.
