Analytics and Advisory Services for Digital FX Products
We provide specialized analytics solutions for all FX market participants – from marketplaces to financial institutions – to optimize their use of digital FX products. We combine these analytics with our market experience and insight to provide bespoke advisory services, throughout the full stack of an FX business.
Digitalisation
FX Products are increasingly digitalised – from the wholesale market, through price construction and delivery to clients, together with systematic risk management. Businesses configured end-to-end around this can deliver the real cost, scale and flexibility benefits from digitalisation.
Modularisation
A modular approach to financial products allows each element (module) of the product to be clearly defined, measured and managed. This flexibility is essential for businesses to adapt to market and regulatory developments.
Disruption
Technological and market developments, including continued margin compression and alternative business models, such as peer-to-peer marketplaces, are all driving further digitalisation in the financial industry.
Analytics Solutions
- Analytics are critical at all levels of a business – for strategic decisions, performance and risk metrics for day-to-day management, to optimise systems and to understand interactions with both clients and electronic markets.
- Digital businesses are complex and dynamic, with many functional elements and interfaces, often comprised of in-house components integrated with third-party systems.
- Specialized metrics provide the tools to measure and manage digital businesses, and to understand and optimise the performance of components.
- Our analytics framework includes comprehensive metrics for risk management performance, attribution, benchmarking and transfer pricing, together with key operational risk indicators.
Advisory Services
We provide advice on:
- Appropriate risk management strategies for different components of client transactions. The risk vs. margin retention trade-off of different internalisation strategies. How to assign an appropriate cost to risk management.
- Metrics for regular monitoring of algorithmic behaviour and performance.
- Total cost of executing orders in various trading venues and under different market conditions. Market impact of orders, under different execution styles.
- More strategic business questions may include outsourcing, pros and cons, as well as its impact on systems and controls, and on regulatory requirements.
- We help clients set up and configure their FX e-Commerce infrastructure, based on our experience with a wide range of bespoke and industry-standard systems. This includes establishing and maintaining appropriate systems and controls.
Review of Automated Trading Systems
We help businesses review their electronic and automated trading in Financial Markets. This includes specialist reviews of:
- Algorithmic behaviour, to help evidence compliance with internal and external requirements (including ESMA RTS for MiFID II/MiFIR).
- Appropriate monitoring of the systems and controls.
- Systems and their configuration, in relation to chosen business model and risk profile.
- Documentation, procedures around release processes and testing, and operational (service level) agreements.
Specialist Training & Seminars
Our training and seminars cover the following topics:
- Regulation: Algorithmic trading under various regulatory regimes and technical standards, including relevant outsourcing requirements.
- Algorithmic Trading: Electronic trading, algorithmic execution and HFT strategies, systems and digital workflow, market structure, liquidity.
- Client Management: Embedding of digital workflows and an understanding of key client-related metrics.
Management Team
Howard Grubb
Howard has extensive experience of automated FX trading from several of the largest banks, as well as from the buy-side. This has included managing and optimising businesses using bespoke analytic attribution models, as well as developing fully automated market making and risk management strategies. He has been responsible for ensuring that system developments comply fully with regulatory requirements, and for integrating FX payments flow into algorithmic risk management. He has worked on a diverse range of system architectures and stages, from design of new deployments, to analysis and remediation of legacy installations. Howard has worked closely with stakeholders from across all business areas and has managed teams responsible for trading, quantitative development and technology.
Stephan von Massenbach
Stephan is an experienced financial markets professional and FX product specialist. He has worked in a number of senior e-FX and FX management roles, most recently as Head of FX e-Commerce responsible for the strategic build out of a robust and scalable system for the management and electronic distribution of the FX product to all client segments. He has devised and driven the implementation of business strategy, working with external consultants at group and divisional level and with stakeholders from across the business, from Senior Executives to Front Office, Compliance and Technology. He has been directly involved in regulatory projects and, as accountable manager for relevant systems and infrastructure, ensured their compliance with regulatory requirements. Stephan has extensive experience in client management, having built and managed successful Sales teams across the full range of FX and other products in FICC markets.