How the next generation of trading platform is benefitting White Label partners – Guest Interview
And therein lies the heart of the argument – a White Label agreement is truly a two way relationship between counterparties, so each and every efficiency that can be incorporated allows companies like CMC Markets to spend more time helping the partner develop and promote the proposition to their user base, says Tony Cross during a conversation with CMC Markets Institutional Operations Manager Michael O’Sullivan
Tony Cross, Director of Monk Communications Ltd, an expert on the retail derivatives industry, speaks to the CMC Markets team about its approach toward White Label partners, both through the initial integration process and on an ongoing basis.
Much has been said about the extensive benefits of the next-gen trading platform, but the migration from the legacy MarketMaker infrastructure has also brought with it some significant service improvements for the White Label partners
As is the case with many other firms, this array of partner banks and brokerages typically provide valuable access into territories that can otherwise be hard to reach – and absolutely nothing has changed regarding this core principle following the migration.
Critically however, the next generation White Label system gives partners secure access into the relevant middle and back office components of the platforms, allowing them to quickly deal with many minor administrative enquiries that otherwise had to be fed back to CMC Markets to be actioned.
In addition, the product has been deliberately engineered to allow CMC Markets to seamlessly support regulatory changes for White Label partners – including the MiFID II roll-out – without having to undertake any significant re-coding projects or necessarily have to process accounts on a line-by-line basis. Evolution in terms of regulation is to be expected, so this approach again helps all parties implement any changes quickly and efficiently.
Institutional Operations Manager, Michael O’Sullivan, heads up the team providing the support to White Label partners, both through the integration process itself and also on an ongoing basis, such as during the recent transition from MarketMaker to next-gen and attributes the growth of CMC Markets’ Institutional division to two main factors.
As Mr O’Sullivan says, “our ability to develop all our trading technology in house not only gives us an advantage over competitors but also enables us to be operationally nimble when it comes to change, given that all our applications are proprietary. Coupled with our strong commercial offering, our entire Institutional product suite offers a compelling reason why an Institution should partner with us.”
Mr O’Sullivan’s team manage all new client implementations and configuration across the entire Institutional product set. Collectively his team of three have over 30 years experience in the OTC/DMA field and are able to respond both swiftly and efficiently to Institutional client requirements. The team also project manages all new Institutional product launches in collaboration with the in house development team.
Mr O’Sullivan continues, “Our proprietary technology doesn’t end at our four walls, either. We have developed a suite of external Institutional products which sits within an architecture that allow those Institutional clients to self-serve their own needs, in turn introducing an added element of synergy to all our Partnerships.”
And therein lies the heart of the argument – a White Label agreement is truly a two way relationship between counterparties, so each and every efficiency that can be incorporated allows companies like CMC Markets to spend more time helping the partner develop and promote the proposition to their user base.
Much of the business as usual administration of accounts – including aspects such as compliance reporting, moving client money or undertaking tasks such as password resets – can now be devolved. As James Shanks, Institutional Relationship Manager at CMC Markets, noted, the autonomy delivered to those clients using the next gen platform had resulted in the typical volume of correspondence with counterparties falling by as much as 75%, freeing up valuable time to focus the commercial success of these projects.
The integration goes beyond the day to day user administration too. As O’Sullivan adds, “we offer our White Label partners a fully functional outsourced CRM system that can be connected to via GUI or API, allowing them to focus on their end customers and with minimal interaction with CMC Markets. These external products, which are fully supported by my team, are accompanied with extensive education sessions at launch to enable the client to focus on what matters most to them, namely trading and servicing their end clients.”
In other words, the next generation trading platform makes for a far more efficient process all round. The major benefit of co-opting partner institutions to deliver these services on a global basis is one of being able to realise scale. Next-gen has truly taken this scalability to the next level.
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