HSBC to white label OANDA's retail fx platform
Many banks and large interdealer brokers seem to take this approach: instead of developing their own retail forex trading platform

Many banks and large interdealer brokers seem to take this approach: instead of developing their own retail forex trading platform they simply white label a ready solution. CitiFX Pro white labels Saxo Bank’s platform, dbFX and MF Global used to white label FXCM’s solution and E*Trade too took FXCM’s white label only a month ago.
There were rumours for some time now that HSBC is ready to enter the retail forex space and now we learn that HSBC is white labelling OANDA’s fxTrade platform and will offer it through its Hong Kong branch to retail forex traders. OANDA’s white labels include RBS and ABN Amro but HSBC is definitely now becoming the biggest of them all. You can see the platform live here: http://www.hsbc.com.hk/1/2/home.
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This is what Michael Stumm, OANDA’s CEO, had to say about this deal: “We’re delighted and honored that a leading bank such as HSBC has launched its new retail forex platform using OANDA’s leading-edge technology, making it available to HSBC’s vast customer base. Our extensive experience in creating trading technology and providing retail forex services is a natural complement to HSBC’s well-established institutional forex offering.”
HSBC today announced the strengthening of its FX franchise with the release of a Margin FX trading service to retail customers in Hong Kong.
Through a strategic relationship with OANDA Corporation (OANDA), this development is an important step in the overall strategy to continually enhance and broaden the HSBC FX offering to clients.
Utilising cutting edge trading technology, the Forex trading platform receives streaming prices from HSBC’s global Foreign Exchange dealing desks, direct to the desktops and mobile devices of HSBC’s qualifying retail customer base.
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Global Head of FX and Commodities at HSBC, Frederic Boillereau, said: “We are delighted to announce this development for HSBC’s FX business through this important partnership. By combining our global liquidity and pricing capabilities with OANDA’s proven platform and expertise, we will be able to deliver notable value to yet another new segment of our extensive client base.”
“Strategic technology investment, answering the needs of our broad array of client types continues to be a fundamental focus for us. Ease of access to our prices and liquidity is demanded by all customer types and retail traders are no different.”
HSBC’s Margin FX platform evolves the retail FX trading space providing a real-time margin trading solution for sophisticated investors and wealth customers as part of our existing banking platform.
Following HSBC’s 46% growth in volumes recorded in the 2011 Euromoney FX poll, the Margin FX release is a further delivery in the global FX and commodities business strategy. The business continues to respond to the evolving market and changing needs of customers throughout the broad spectrum of FX customers and clients it serves.
James Carter, Head of Margin FX at HSBC, commented: “In providing this Margin FX capability into our existing HSBC online banking systems we have combined the strengths of two business groups of our global bank, offering our customers a truly integrated FX trading experience. Security of customer funds and the ability to transfer instantly between integrated, yet segregated bank accounts is uniquely convenient to bank trading customers.”
The Margin FX platform is available now to qualifying HSBC customers in Hong Kong.
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Very nice. Oanda’s fxTrade platform is one of the best. Now, will HSBC have similar spreads as Oanda?
Very nice. Oanda’s fxTrade platform is one of the best. Now, will HSBC have similar spreads as Oanda?
What abot HSBCspreads?
What abot HSBCspreads?
Oanda’s fxTrade platform is bad. Very inflexible limiting to only 13 timeframes (no 3 minute, no 20 minute, no 2 hour, no 6 hour, no weekly, no monthly). Charts in the platform don’t allow non-time based charts (no point & figure, no tick, etc). Oanda now offers use of MT4 yet almost daily the price does not map over so you see gaps in live charts that make it very difficult to trade from and almost impossible when for entering orders because of delays and orders that don’t actually enter. Disappointed Oanda really doesn’t listen to customers complaints and suggestions.
Oanda’s fxTrade platform is bad. Very inflexible limiting to only 13 timeframes (no 3 minute, no 20 minute, no 2 hour, no 6 hour, no weekly, no monthly). Charts in the platform don’t allow non-time based charts (no point & figure, no tick, etc). Oanda now offers use of MT4 yet almost daily the price does not map over so you see gaps in live charts that make it very difficult to trade from and almost impossible when for entering orders because of delays and orders that don’t actually enter. Disappointed Oanda really doesn’t listen to customers complaints and suggestions.
I never have understood why people would use charting from the same broker that which they trade with. Isn’t this like the fox in the hen-house? To suggest that fxTrade platform is bad because of its charting is missing the boat completely. I use fxTrade exclusively, but have never seen their charts. Why would I want to? I’ve been a Tradestation user since 1989 and will be for another 20 years. I have always used Tradestation for my charting, but another platform for my trade execution. I’ve never mixed the two. The reason I like fxTrade is its lightening speed… Read more »
I never have understood why people would use charting from the same broker that which they trade with. Isn’t this like the fox in the hen-house? To suggest that fxTrade platform is bad because of its charting is missing the boat completely. I use fxTrade exclusively, but have never seen their charts. Why would I want to? I’ve been a Tradestation user since 1989 and will be for another 20 years. I have always used Tradestation for my charting, but another platform for my trade execution. I’ve never mixed the two. The reason I like fxTrade is its lightening speed… Read more »
I guess that people use charting applications offered freely by the broker himself because:
1) they are free
2) they can expect reasonably good customer support (if the charting application is 3rd party and you encounter some serious malfunction, the broker will blame the software company, and the latter the former).
(I’ve been through this with my TV set and my cable TV provider – each one blames the other for some annoying technical glitch.)
Oh, and Oanda’s default application is embarassing.
I guess that people use charting applications offered freely by the broker himself because:
1) they are free
2) they can expect reasonably good customer support (if the charting application is 3rd party and you encounter some serious malfunction, the broker will blame the software company, and the latter the former).
(I’ve been through this with my TV set and my cable TV provider – each one blames the other for some annoying technical glitch.)
Oh, and Oanda’s default application is embarassing.
Mr. Greenberg, could you please provide a link to the comments feed of this blog? Currently, only a posts feed is offered (in the upper-right corner). The thing is that sometimes the comments are very interesting and they round up a story nicely.
Mr. Greenberg, could you please provide a link to the comments feed of this blog? Currently, only a posts feed is offered (in the upper-right corner). The thing is that sometimes the comments are very interesting and they round up a story nicely.
I’m failing to see the connection in which you’re trying to imply. If my Tradestation charting goes down, why on earth would Tradestation blame Oanda or vice-versa? Or, if my trade execution platform goes down, why would Tradestation charting be blamed? There is ZERO connection between the two and that’s the point. The key benefit here is keeping your charting away from your brokerage account. Use your broker to execute your trades… that’s it. That’s the ONLY reason the broker is in business… to execute trades! Get your charting from a professional data provider such as Ninjatrader, Tradestation, eSignal or… Read more »
I’m failing to see the connection in which you’re trying to imply. If my Tradestation charting goes down, why on earth would Tradestation blame Oanda or vice-versa? Or, if my trade execution platform goes down, why would Tradestation charting be blamed? There is ZERO connection between the two and that’s the point. The key benefit here is keeping your charting away from your brokerage account. Use your broker to execute your trades… that’s it. That’s the ONLY reason the broker is in business… to execute trades! Get your charting from a professional data provider such as Ninjatrader, Tradestation, eSignal or… Read more »
Using a third party platform (that’s not supported by Oanda) has the drawback, the price on your charts never matches Oanda’s. The data feed if it is not Oanda’s will be different than Oanda’s. So you trade looking at one price and executing at another.
Using a third party platform (that’s not supported by Oanda) has the drawback, the price on your charts never matches Oanda’s. The data feed if it is not Oanda’s will be different than Oanda’s. So you trade looking at one price and executing at another.
quite often there is a necessary compliance structure that requires titles even for the smallest firms
quite often there is a necessary compliance structure that requires titles even for the smallest firms
Yes, I agree the fraction of pip differences might make a difference in high-frequency scalping, but when trading for more than 50pips using market orders, you can expect a slight variances either way up or down, half the time in our favor, the other half not, with it all washing out. However, the reason you cited is actually the true benefit of not relying on broker feeds. In the past 10 years, there’s probably been 8-12 occurrences where the broker moved market 30+ pips just to take out our stop loss. It happened recently 6-mths ago with FXCM where they… Read more »
Yes, I agree the fraction of pip differences might make a difference in high-frequency scalping, but when trading for more than 50pips using market orders, you can expect a slight variances either way up or down, half the time in our favor, the other half not, with it all washing out. However, the reason you cited is actually the true benefit of not relying on broker feeds. In the past 10 years, there’s probably been 8-12 occurrences where the broker moved market 30+ pips just to take out our stop loss. It happened recently 6-mths ago with FXCM where they… Read more »
Using more than one datasource for trading in an OTC market is in my opinion pretty much mandatory – otherwise you have to take what ever your broker shows at facevalue and don’t even know if the quote is competitive or not. Another reason is technical hicups – either network related or on the broker side, when you have more than one datasource, its immediately obvious something is out of whack and wont click on a stale quote or similar. Most people, when they buy a new computer for example, compare prices on the web before they buy. Yet, surprisingly,… Read more »
A few hundreds accounts can be worth $100k monthly to a broker, sometimes more. The numbers are for US clients only and CFTC doesn’t publish them so the only place you can find them is here 🙂
A few hundreds accounts can be worth $100k monthly to a broker, sometimes more. The numbers are for US clients only and CFTC doesn’t publish them so the only place you can find them is here 🙂
Using more than one datasource for trading in an OTC market is in my opinion pretty much mandatory – otherwise you have to take what ever your broker shows at facevalue and don’t even know if the quote is competitive or not. Another reason is technical hicups – either network related or on the broker side, when you have more than one datasource, its immediately obvious something is out of whack and wont click on a stale quote or similar. Most people, when they buy a new computer for example, compare prices on the web before they buy. Yet, surprisingly,… Read more »
I agree with Steve and Andy in the sense that it is wise to have another feed running so that if you experience problems with broker, you can immediately see if it is a broker thing, or a market move. You should also be video recording the feeds side by side for better proof. Wise to pre-familiarize yourself with the screen recording software so that it can be launched and windows positioned for recording in under 2 minutes. Or leave it running. You should be able to record 1280 x 1024 with xvid or h.284 codec for under 2 GB… Read more »
I agree with Steve and Andy in the sense that it is wise to have another feed running so that if you experience problems with broker, you can immediately see if it is a broker thing, or a market move. You should also be video recording the feeds side by side for better proof. Wise to pre-familiarize yourself with the screen recording software so that it can be launched and windows positioned for recording in under 2 minutes. Or leave it running. You should be able to record 1280 x 1024 with xvid or h.284 codec for under 2 GB… Read more »