Exclusive: OANDA Opens up Its fxTrade API for Widespread Developer Use

One of the oldest FX brokerages around the globe, OANDA, has issued a statement announcing the free availability of its proprietary fxTrade platform code via the company’s REST (Representational State Transfer) Application Programming Interface (API). OANDA’s API is independent of the programming language which is being used - simply put, developers and traders can use their preferred method of coding to connect to and build on top of the fxTrade platform.

The company provides a development guide which contains user documentation, code samples and reference implementations. OANDA's API supplies the developers live and historical market data, trading support for market orders with trailing stops, and a full set of the most widely used orders on the FX market - stop-loss, take-profit, standard and entry limit orders. For fxTrade clients, there’s account data, live streaming rates, and according to the statement, push notifications are expected to go live soon.

The move is likely to boost OANDA's position among trading platforms which are offering their own app stores, such as Tradable and FXCM's Forex Forex Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Read this Term Trading Apps. The openness of the API could rapidly contribute to the introduction of additional dynamics to the otherwise functional, but still fairly conservative fxTrade platform.

OANDA is changing its strategy in this regard, ever since the appointment of Ed Eger as CEO, and the vast executive reshuffling aims to steer the course of the company into a new direction just as the company's CMO, Drew Izzo, has already confirmed in an exclusive interview with Forex Magnates.

Our reporters reached out to the company’s product manager, Barbara Bermes, with some questions regarding the move and to gather more information about how an open API might affect the recently introduced OANDA Marketplace.

What is the current interest of developers and how does OANDA plan to control what's offered on the Marketplace?

Individual traders and partners (new and existing) showed huge interest in OANDA's new API. We had hundreds of active users from around the world in the beta program, eager to develop trading strategies and applications in their preferred languages (Python, Ruby, .NET, Java, JavaScript etc).

We certainly have in mind to add OANDA API-powered apps on our Marketplace. All additions come from our trusted partners and are vetted to ensure they meet OANDA's standards. For starters, we put them through our internal technical review process and they also need to meet regulatory guidelines depending on the region.

What type of apps/extensions are the most popular on the OANDA Marketplace so far, and how do you plan on going forward?

On the Marketplace, the most popular apps to date are for technical analysis. With the work coming out of the beta program, most of the development has been done around automated trading strategies and real-time automated market analysis. We can see some of these hitting the OANDA Marketplace in the future.

We will continue to engage with our API users (similar to the way we've done during our beta program) to fully understand how they use the API today and how OANDA can help them build interesting applications and strategies.

How can traders/developers get guidance as how to use it to develop automated trading strategies?

Our developer portal is the go-to source for anybody who wants to learn about the new API and wants to learn how to get started. Guides as well as code samples are intended to help interested traders or developers to start using the API. In addition, our plan is to extend the developer portal as an educational resource to cover all of our existing APIs, adding more documentation, more code samples, release notes and more educational material such as video tutorials and reference implementations.