FX technology vendors are leading the world in FinTech – here is an endorsement that paves the way

Rather like “Y2K” or “Millenium” at the end of the last century, today’s buzzword is FinTech, a word which is very much central to conversations across the entire world, in all sectors of the financial services business ranging from banking and lending, right through to institutional electronic trading.

Companies which consider themselves to be very much part of the FinTech culture have gained tremendous kudos, and are regarded as plate glass, ultra-modern innovators whose executives are young, sophisticated and urbane. Gone are the days in which bank staff were feared by retail customers, and in which the notion of a meeting with a member of bank staff conjured up images of said person resembling a stereotypical used car salesman in 1970s East London.

Once the retail financial services world began to become not only technology reliant but a technology leader, paving the way for many other industries to adopt technical initiatives first seen in financial services, the donkey jacket and brylcreme gave way to the stylish and casual brand names, and the images of backstreet sales methodology gave way to the cafe culture of the hippest cities in Europe, Asia and North America.

Indeed, this initiative has gone so far that FX technology vendors are now beginning to gain very distinct recognition among FinTech leaders, by all-encompassing publications and at global events which focus on all new innovations, not just FX and electronic trading.

Under normal circumstances, the gaining of an award by an FX broker or technology vendor would have the same effect as a dose of mogadon, however last week’s nomination by uber-trendy FinTech news source Red Herring nominated FX broker enterprise technology company Leverate as winner of its Top 100 Europe Award.

Leverate was chosen amongst a total of 1200 innovative companies across Europe in various fields, from telecommunications to security, cloud, software, hardware, biotech and mobile and granted this award during a ceremony that took place in Amsterdam this past April 11th – 13th.

“After meeting and hearing about many of the companies that were nominated to this award, I am truly honored and proud of our selection. There are many other great companies from bio-tech, Fin-tech, Ad-Tech, and other technological spaces that did not win, which makes this award and honor even more significant. We are extremely proud of what we have accomplished and of the team behind Leverate” – Kobi Gur, CEO, Leverate.

Leverate’s research and innovation efforts, including placing considerable emphasis on the importance of scalable technology solutions and how market events that pass without glitch can remain a part of the trading topography without having to concern traders and brokerages not only with volatility, but with technological outages as a result of extreme volume.

“When there is a high load in the market, there are difficulties that arise which can cost brokerages vast amounts of money. These are byproducts of system instablility caused by trying to cope with high volumes, such as arbitrage opportunities by rival traders, and outages meaning trades cannot be executed, opened or closed, and of course slippage. We have put a lot of effort into execution speed, latency, how fast a trade can be processed to the market, and also by traders to our servers”” – Or Chubook, Group R&D Manager, Leverate.

Leverate has made outstanding advancements in social trading, having created one of the largest Forex trading communities and in automation technology, allowing brokers to optimize their acquisition, conversion and retention rates. The company has also taken a huge leap forward in terms of geo-expansion in Asia, opening offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai and offering an extremely localized solution.

It is indeed a move in the right direction for the FX industry when technology vendors that have long since been particular to our industry only, are beginning to be the subject of reference and worldwide recognition across all sectors of technological development.