Saxo Bank client deposits grow by 400% since take over by China’s Geely
The key driver behind Saxo Bank’s growth in account deposits is likely to be its business expansion in China, especially since Geely took over the trading company in 2018.
Saxo Bank has announced 238,000 clients opened an account during 2020 and deposited more than DKK 75 billion (EUR 10 billion), which puts the broker at a record-breaking milestone of DKK 500 billion (USD 80 billion) in deposits. In the last three years, the 28-year old trading company has seen deposits growing from DKK 100 billion to the current figure, up by 400%.
Kim Fournais, CEO and founder, commented: “We would like to thank our increasing number of direct and institutional clients for their trust and confidence in Saxo Bank. We are proud and humbled to reach this important milestone and we will continue to innovate and constantly improve the SaxoExperience – so our growing number of clients across the world can benefit from state of the art platforms and act in a timely, relevant, and informed manner.”
The Danish investment bank states that the effort to improve the trading platforms, products, and services, as well as the further expansion into the investor segment and the integration of BinckBank have fueled the organic growth in new clients. It is most likely to be more complicated than that.
Saxo established a China office in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone in September 2015 and has since then signed extensive financial technology partnerships as part of its Greater China strategy. Geely International Hong Kong, a subsidiary of Geely Group, became a shareholder in Saxo in 2017 after acquiring a 25.71% stake and, one year later, the Chinese multinational took over after agreeing to hold 52% of the trading company.
The take over significantly boosted Saxo’s business opportunities in China and elsewhere as it gained access to a much wider market to whom provide its financial and regulatory technology such as cloud-based services, big data, and artificial intelligence in areas of trading and investment,robo-advisory, asset management, risk solutions, and Regtech.
Geely’s acquisition of Saxo Bank came amid a complete role-reversal that took place in China which created a massive opportunity for multi-asset FX brokers. The new law against regional exchanges opened the door to retail FX as companies look toward OTC electronic trading via international liquidity providers in order to retain their existing audience and branch out, whilst protecting themselves against closure.
This would mean the opening of prime brokerage accounts with global providers and using platforms hosted in mainland China, but developed and owned by global companies, in order to connect an existing Chinese client base to Chinese and international asset classes. Saxo Bank is in a prominent position to provide the needed liquidity to the Chinese OTC market, especially since being acquired by Geely. This just might be the key driver to Saxo Bank’s growth in recent years.
