oneZero moves with the times by launching institutional service as electronic trading goes multi asset
Market integration companies are not as quick as oneZero at realizing that they need to be able to provide a full solution to connect every area of liquidity from every source, especially at a time during which the entire capital markets industry is becoming more democratized
Evolution is always a far more stable methodology than revolution, and that certainly applies in the electronic trading industry, a technology-driven business which relies on component platform technology, however in the retail sector, 85% of the platform technology that is in current use can trace its origins back to 2004 with hardly any material change.
Not only is the retail FX sector’s ubiquitous platform some seventeen years old, but it is extremely limiting in its functionality, a matter that has been notable for many years, but is becoming more apparent than ever now.
A company that has understood the need to develop the technological interface with which brokers, banks and market makers interact with each other and the wider live capital markets business globally rather than concentrate on volume-based affiliate style partnerships with spot FX brokers and MetaQuotes is oneZero, led by the astute Andrew Ralich.
Whilst many liquidity ‘bridge’ providers whose business was founded on the premise of opening the MetaTrader 4 platform to be able to connect it to aggregated liquidity feeds from prime of prime brokerages stuck steadfastly to their MetaTrader 4 orientated roots, oneZero has been advancing its mettle over recent years, largely focusing on creating a holistic technology solution that connects all components of the electronic capital markets business together.
Today, oneZero has launched its latest product, under the moniker ‘Institutional Hub’, which is designed to put institutional brokers, prime of prime providers and banks in control of their trading. The Institutional Hub adds to oneZero’s suite of Hubs that also includes Retail Broker Hub and Liquidity Provider Hub, solving the specific needs of each audience.
oneZero’s Institutional Hub allows clients to define all trading criteria with advanced aggregation, price formation, customized distribution, risk management and systematic hedging. Comprehensive price formation capabilities are used in conjunction with intelligence gained from Insights that allow institutional brokers and banks to analyze their liquidity provider performance and client trading behavior.
Together with the Institutional Hub, the oneZero platform also includes EcoSystem for market access and cloud-based Data Source for business intelligence. oneZero empowers Institutional Hub clients to facilitate bilateral relationships between their customers and their liquidity sources. This is strengthened by the stored quote and trade data that is transformed into analytics that enable informed strategies.
oneZero’s Software as a Service offering allows clients to get to market quickly, as it is coupled with EcoSystem’s connectivity. The technology is proven to be extremely robust, routing billions of quotes daily. With over 100 staff, oneZero offers a follow-the-sun support model, with a global operations team based in Asia, Europe and the United States that provides customer support 24/5.5 to clients in their own time zone. In addition, oneZero is certified to the standards of ISO 27001.
oneZero was founded in 2009 with its roots in building low-latency trading infrastructures, and has more recently invested in highly sophisticated human workflows, which can be seen in the Institutional Hub user interface.
“The Institutional Hub user interface gives control back to the trader, presenting them with a simplistic way of executing complicated workflows. Clients can compare full amount trades with sweepable and bespoke streams,” commented Uri Lerman, oneZero’s Segment Manager, Wholesale Brokers.
As oneZero celebrated its tenth anniversary at its offices in Limassol, Cyprus in 2019, the company’s global reach and contribution to the entire structure of the business in which we operate is more than apparent. oneZero’s senior management and key FX industry stakeholders joined in the company’s tenth-anniversary celebration, during which FinanceFeeds spoke to oneZero CEO Andrew Ralich.
“In marking our tenth anniversary, we continue to focus on the core values of the company which include continually hiring good people, maintaining a focus on high customer service and support and building high-performance technology solutions with auditability and transparency,” said Mr Ralich.
“With multiple regulatory and industry-changing directives by global regulators such as ESMA occurring as the electronic trading industry matures, we are constantly evolving our global infrastructure and connectivity, and we have full availability across our global data centers, including Tokyo’s TY3 for Asia-Pacific markets” he said.
At that time, oneZero shared the emphasis on the company’s move toward institutional business, which is happening at a critical time. FinanceFeeds has long been an advocate of taking the retail technology and prime liquidity providers toward institutional client bases, those being largely hedge funds, proprietary trading companies, algorithmic system developers and wealth managers in major financial centers.
Addressing the 100 attendees from global institutional and retail electronic trading businesses, Mr. Ralich explained, “One of the company’s most important milestones was the creation of Liquidity Hub. This enabled us to provide every client with a node into oneZero’s EcoSystem. We regularly add new providers offering direct market access (DMA) and multi-asset trading who benefit from the integration and access to a new base of customer flow. At the same time, our retail brokerage clients can connect to all markets and asset classes, both listed and over-the-counter.”
Mr Ralich continued by elaborating on the oneZero Data Source offering, “From the EcoSystem trading activity, information is anonymized to create a new industry benchmark. With this data, brokers can ascertain the average industry spread across the entire market, for example, among other advanced analytics. Reviewing your performance as compared to other brokers’ is essential for quality execution.”
“These new metrics run on AWS (Amazon Web Services) and include important data, such as average tick rates and average spreads. If you don’t have a business intelligence analyst on the team, we can provide an analytics package with that data fully included, which represents a savings and helps brokers be efficient when collating important data” explained Mr Ralich.
Several executives in attendance at the event shared their experiences and views of oneZero’s developments over the last ten years by speaking to FinanceFeeds during the course of the event.
Broctagon Prime Executive Director Marios Oikonomides noted, “We find that oneZero is always ready to support. They do a wonderful job of maintaining the difficult task of keeping broker technology efficient.”
Traction Fintech CEO Quinn Perrott added, “If I could sum up oneZero, I’d say that it aggregates the industry and brings everyone together.”
“oneZero is a very credible reference point and ongoing solution for the industry. They understand our business properly and are the most successful platform integrator,” commented Gabriel Styllas, CEO of FiveComply.
James Alexander, Chief Operating Officer of INVAST Global explained to FinanceFeeds during the event “There are two things that immediately come to mind: The company has a clear strategic focus with its business, and it has a clear desire to deliver a multi-asset solution, which at this point in the industry’s evolution both are absolutely vital. At INVAST, we will be launching our DMA multi-asset solution with exchange pricing and exchange execution, listed derivatives via MT5 and oneZero for the first time.”
Perspectives from FinanceFeeds London Thought Leadership Conference
Today’s traders are very much part of the information age, and certainly at the FinanceFeeds Professional Trading Thought Leadership Conference hosted by FinanceFeeds in London just a few months previous, leading institutional hedge fund managers, algorithm developers, listed derivatives experts and proprietary traders with over 30 years of experience each discussed the importance of providing granular and relevant information about the markets to traders so that they are able to analyse their trading in the best possible way.
Brokers needing to elevate their business and increase their efficiency are now at a point where they have to look toward institutional clients and partners, a dynamic that was absolutely evident in the panel’s comments.
Discussing the necessary evolution that the FX industry needs and is absolutely ready for, senior leaders of the electronic trading sector engaged with hedge fund managers, institutional traders and movers and shakers from across the globe, looking closely at how to build a new and sustainable ecosystem for the advanced trader.
Data and AI were very much central talking points, and the panel discussion, led by four elite leaders of some of the world’s most important trading facilities, each with over 30 years of experience, was highly interactive, looking at how to use data. Brokers and liquidity providers were engaged in this discussion with zeal, and the algorithmic traders and hedge fund participants from Silicon Valley to New York and Singapore to London who attended are absolutely aware that the upper echelons of the retail sector is now poised to serve them well, all of which bodes clearly with the direction of growth demonstrated just a short time later by oneZero.
Market integration companies are not as quick as oneZero at realizing that they need to be able to provide a full solution to connect every area of liquidity from every source, especially at a time during which the entire capital markets industry is becoming more democratized and is embracing the multi asset capabilities that have been necessary for a number of years now.
