Andrew Webber quits XTX Markets after three years
E-FX banking specialist Andrew Webber has parted ways with XTX Markets, ending a three-year tenure with the non-bank FX Liquidity provider and market maker.
Webber joins Qube Research & Technologies’ team after a lengthy career in the capital markets space, during which he has focused on foreign exchange Analytics and held several trading roles.
Qube Research & Technologies (QRT) is a UK-based quantitative and systematic investment manager, with a wide-ranging presence in all liquid asset classes across the globe. QRT uses a technology and data-driven approach towards investing. Headquartered in London, QRT has additional offices in Hong Kong, Mumbai, Paris and Singapore.
Webber’s expertise in quantitative trading seems an ideal fit to help the seven-year-old fund further grow its client franchise, which has been unusually swift. The use of algorithmic execution tools in foreign exchange has increased significantly as recent volatility drives FX traders to seek increased efficiencies in trading.
Alongside other asset classes, the FX market has responded to the Russo-Ukrainian War with worrying volatility. As a result, investors looked to so-called adaptive algorithms that are based on the machine learning model that allows incremental learning. This has led to the adoption of algos by FX market participants to surge as traders seek a competitive edge.
QRT employs computer models to trade stocks and was staffed by proprietary traders from the Credit Suisse until 2017 when it was spun off from the giant lender due to regulations that restricted banks from performing proprietary trading activities.
Andrew joined XTX Markets as Global Head of Distribution in 2020 coming from BNP Paribas. He worked with the French lender for more than two years as Head of eFX Client Analytics. Prior to that, he was a senior quantitative trader at Sun Trading LLC, a Chicago-based privately held proprietary trading firm.
Webber spent the bulk of his career at Deutsche Bank. He originally joined Germany’s biggest banking group back in 2009 as Analyst and Interest Rate Trader, then was promoted in 2011 to take up the role of FX Quant Trader, a position he held until he left in 2016.
During his time at XTX Markets, Webber helped grow the business that steadily climbed the ranks of electronic market makers, now commanding a significant portion of the spot FX turnover, displacing leading banks such as J.P. Morgan Chase in the process.
Per its latest filing with the UK Companies House, the firm’s operations generated a record of £1.095 billion in net profits in 2022 compared with £667 million the previous year and £470 million in 2020.
