smartTrade Secures Contract Wins in London and Japan

By Zoe Schiff

smartTrade Technologies has secured contract wins in London and Japan. In London, the trading solutions supplier will build and host an e-trading platform for R5FX, a new liquidity pool dedicated to emerging market currencies trading. In Japan, smartTrade will host its LiquidityFX low-latency connectivity platform for Gaitame.com, an online foreign exchange company.

R5FX, a London based fintech start-up, is beta testing a marketplace for local market FX trading that it plans to take live later this year. The company hopes to drive growth in the trading of emerging market currencies as the market migrates from being largely voice traded to become a more transparent and efficient screen-based market. Responding to forthcoming MiFID regulation on leverage ratios that will make cetralised trading models more attractive to FX trading banks, R5FX will operate a central credit model, allowing clients to reduce the number of credit lines required to trade emerging market currencies.

Jon Vollemaere, CEO of R5FX, explains: “R5FX offers banks and institutional traders a venue that provides equal access to emerging market currencies, enabling fast and efficient trading. We chose smartTrade’s platform as it is industry proven, robust, flexible to match our needs, and provides us with the capacity to support future market growth.” David Vincent, CEO of smartTrade, adds: “smartTrade’s platform will enable R5FX to offer its customers increased liquidity and a broader range of emerging market related instruments, some of which were not previously available. The platform addresses the need for speed to market, offers HTML5 user interface customisation and will allow R5FX to quickly onboard new clients.”

In Japan, Gaitame.com will use a collocated, hosted version of smartTrade’s LiquidityFX platform to access extended connectivity to liquidity providers and enhance the chance of trade execution. Taking advantage of smartTrade’s fast access to a large FX liquidity pool with fewer technical issues, the company also aims to optimise costs and improve its offer to retail clients.