FX week in review: B2Prime launch, XTB revenues down, Exness volumes top $1.5T

This past week saw us turn the calendar page to a new month, and along with it a number of new brand launches, new senior management hires, and new records set in the FX industry.

Which senior executive joined B2Broker in London, as it gets set to launch its new B2Prime liquidity brand?

Which former Retail FX CEO (OANDA, Alpari) returned to the industry? And, in what capacity?

What new initiatives are planned by Cyprus regulator CySEC, especially concerning the marketing activities of licensed CIFs?

Why did Playtech’s £2.1 billion acquisition by Aristocrat Leisure break up?

Which Retail FX broker set an all-time industry record for monthly trading volumes?

Answers to these questions, and a whole lot more, appeared first or exclusively this past week at FNG. Some of the most read and commented-on FX industry news stories to appear over the past seven days on FNG included:

Exness sets Retail FX record with January 2022 volumes topping $1.5 trillion. After topping the $1 trillion client trading volumes mark in each of the last three months of 2021, Retail FX and CFDs broker Exness started off 2022 with a bang, posting $1.51 trillion in volumes for January 2022. The $1.5T mark is – by a wide margin – the most trading volume ever posted by a Retail FX broker, besting Exness’ own previous record of $1.269 trillion set in November 2021 by 19%. For another comparison point, in 2021 overall, Exness averaged $922 billion in monthly client trading volumes, which was up by 63% over 2020’s $565 billion. The number of active clients at Exness during January 2022 was also a record figure, 257,135, topping November’s 246,561.

XTB.com revenues down 7% in Q4 to $46M, profits down 32% to $17M. Poland based Retail FX and CFDs brokerage group XTB S.A. (WSE:XTB) has reported its financial results for Q4 and full year 2021, indicating that Q4 was slightly weaker on both the top and bottom line than Q3 at XTB, although still much improved from a very weak Q2. Q4 revenues at XTB S.A., which operates the Retail FX and CFDs brand XTB.com as well as B2B services and tech arm X Open Hub, came in at PLN 183.6 million (USD $46 million), down 7% from Q3’s PLN 196.6 million. For the full year 2021 XTB brought in PLN 625.6 million in revenue (USD $154 million), down 22% from 2020’s PLN 797.8 million.

New initiatives by CySEC aim to ensure investor protection. The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) is enhancing its supervisory capabilities through the use of new technologies and other tools. This was the focal point of CySEC Chairman Dr George Theocharides’ speech delivered during a press conference on Tuesday, 1 February 2022, focusing on CySEC’s goals for 2022 and the sector’s trends and developments in 2021. CySEC aims to strengthen its ability to identify bad practices in a timely fashion, working proactively to prevent their implementation. CySEC’s enhanced supervisory approach includes the use of new technology to monitor and supervise the marketing and social media activities of regulated entities.

Playtech expects rejection of Aristocrat 680p-per-share offer at today’s shareholder vote. As we reported yesterday was likely to happen (based on how the company’s shares were trading), online gaming tech and financial services company Playtech put out a brief statement this morning that it expects today’s scheduled Playtech shareholder vote to either accept or reject Aristocrat’s 680p-per-share all-cash offer to end in a rejection of the deal. And, subsequently, in the lapse of Aristocrat’s offer. The statement also confirmed our earlier report that the company has been working on a “Plan B” to break up Playtech, i.e. looking to separately sell the group’s B2C and B2B divisions. Playtech also provided a brief update on the $250 million sale of its financials division Finalto.

Top FX industry executive moves reported at FNG this week included:

Daniel Skowronski