News Nuggets | 12 July: eToro's CFDs Fees; Hirings at Exinity, Scope Markets

Exness’ Executive Joins Finery Markets

Stanislav Bublik, the Head of Trading Products at Exness, has announced changing his current post to the Chief Product Officer in Finery Markets. In the past, Bublik worked, among others, for Sberbank, where he spent more than seven years. First, as a Senior Product Development Specialist and later as the Executive Director and the Head of Electronic Markets Distribution.

“I’m really happy to join Finery Markets as Chief Product Officer! It's great to be part of a strong and professional team and work on products that markets need now,” Bublik wrote on his LinkedIn profile.

CBDO Leaves M4Markets

In a separate LinkedIn update, Nick Jay, the Chief Business Development Officer (CBDO) at M4Markets has declared that he is leaving the company after almost three years. According to his post on social media, Jay is not joining a new company at the moment.

“Was amazing to join a clean and fresh brand almost 3 years ago and have the trust and chance to grow it and take it to where it is now,” Jay commented.

Before joining M4Markets, Jay served HotForex for almost five years as the Head of Partnerships and earlier at IronFX as the Global Sales Manager.

LTX and Aladdin Boost Corporate Bond Trading

In an effort to enhance corporate bond trading workflows, LTX, a subsidiary of Broadridge Financial Solutions, has furthered its partnership with BlackRock's Aladdin. The integration of LTX's Liquidity Cloud and actionable pre-trade Cloud Match Scores directly into the Aladdin platform is designed to improve liquidity discovery and trading efficiency.

The Aladdin platform, an end-to-end investment management and operations tool used by institutional investors, will now be able to tap into LTX's data-driven capabilities.

ESMA Signals Risks of Pre-Hedging

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has released a final report, based on its ‘2022 Call for Evidence’ on pre-hedging, which is a voluntary market practice. Although the regulator does not find enough reasons to currently ban pre-hedging, it warns about the potential conflict of interest or abusive behavior related to this practice. ESMA emphasizes the need to consider these risks when issuing future guidance.

ESMA has committed to providing guidance on pre-hedging in a future review of the ‘Market Abuse Regulation’. As a part of its ongoing work, ESMA will contribute to the development of global regulatory principles applicable to pre-hedging.

Stronghold Unveils StrongholdNET

A payments fintech, Stronghold has launched StrongholdNET, an ecosystem designed to enhance accessibility in the payments sector. The new system integrates various contributors, including merchants and technology partners, thereby creating a new model for payment providers and businesses globally.

StrongholdNET is also expanding Stronghold's Merchant Financing Program, which now uses DeFi-funded cash advances to fund business projects. The use of blockchain technology increases the ease and efficiency with which merchants can access financing options.

eToro Updates CFDs Fees

eToro has updated the overnight CFDs fee structure by implementing the first phase on 3 July, which has introduced zero overnight fees on short positions of most stocks. The broker is going to update the fees in two phases.

"We're ecstatic to announce that we're removing overnight fees for short positions on the vast majority (approximately 98%) of available stocks. This change will have a significant impact on your trading experience, and we believe it will save you money, especially if you hold short positions," the broker stated.

The new structure applied to all stocks with a yearly borrowing cost of less than 10 percent. It highlighted that the traders paid between 6 percent and 8 percent in overnight fees using the old structure.

Exinity Onboards New Global Sales VP

Exinity, the FX/CFDs brokerage brand owned by Andrey Dashin, has hired Katina Messinis as the Vice President for Global Sales. Most recently, she worked at Exness as the Global Head of Premier Account Management.

Before Exness, Messinis spent roughly a couple of years at ZuluTrade and parted as the Acting Head of Institutional Sales. She also worked at PwC, Baker McKenzie, and several other companies.

"Exinity is a global fintech business, offering clients a unique and innovative range of trading and investment products. Together, we aim to help our clients achieve the financial independence they desire, and by doing so, give them the freedom to succeed," Messinis wrote in a social media post.

MFSA Warns against Unlicensed Entity

The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) today (Wednesday) warned against an entity operating under the name of Prolific Trades Ltd, which is offering CFDs trading. According to the regulator, the company claimed to be regulated by the MFSA, which is false.

"The MFSA wishes to alert the public that Prolific Trades Ltd is NEITHER a Maltese registered company NOR licensed or otherwise authorized by the MFSA to provide any investment services or other financial services which are required to be licensed or otherwise authorized under Maltese law. The public should therefore refrain from entering into any transactions or otherwise dealing with the above-mentioned entity on any matters falling within the parameters of the Investment Services Act, Chapter 370 of the Laws of Malta," the announcement stated.

Scope Markets Strengths Business Development Team

Scope Markets, a brokerage brand owned by the Rostro Group, has hired Can Uyanik as a new Senior Business Development Manager. He was most recently the Country Manager of Spain at Trive, another FX/CFDs broker.

According to his Linkedin profile, Uyanik spent more than nine years at Trive (previously GKG) in the early years of his career. He started as a Technical Analyst at TeleTrade and later moved to Alpari as the Chief Analyst.

Opens New York Office

TransFICC, a provider of low-latency connectivity and workflow services for fixed-income and derivatives markets, announced today (Wednesday) the opening of its New York office. The company added three new staff in the new office: Sean Murphy as a Senior Sales Executive to lead new North American business, Bo-Yun Liu as a Pre-Sales Engineer to lead Client Architecture Solutioning globally, and Khagay Nagdimov as a Pre-Sales Engineer.

"With six North American clients and a presence in the New York and Chicago data centres, it is important for TransFICC to have a US office," said Steve Toland, the Co-Founder of TransFICC.