News Nuggets | 16 May: Futu Exits China App Stores; Beeks' New Contract

Futu to Remove Apps from Mainland China

Futu Holdings Limited, a Nasdaq-listed trading platform, announced the delisting of the Futubull app from app stores in Mainland China on 19 May 2023.

The delisting came in response to the Chinese Securities and Regulatory Commission's warning against Futu and other similar trading platforms allowing access to non-Chinese stocks to investors in Mainland China. The removal, according to Futu, will bring its operations into full compliance with such regulatory principles.

"After the Futubull app is removed from app stores in Mainland China, existing Mainland China clients can still make trades on Futubull, and the relevant services and business will not be affected in any way by the removal. Users outside Mainland China may also continue to download and use Futubull without any interruption," the announcement stated.

"Futu will continue to serve all existing Mainland China clients by offering high-quality products, services, and user experience."

Beeks Wins OneChronos Contract

Beeks Financial Cloud Group, a cloud computing connectivity provider for financial markets, is going to provide a private computing environment for OneChronos' new Alternative Trading System (ATS).

"After a thorough review of the market, we're thrilled to have successfully outsourced infrastructure to Beeks Group's high-performance, modern compute capabilities," said Iris McAtee, the Head of Engineering at OneChronos. "Beeks will help us better deliver on the One Chronos value proposition, using high-performance computing to provide differentiated execution and liquidity for our members. Beeks' flexible architecture and solutions help us develop products and deliver breakthrough smart market matching functionality to our members faster and cheaper."

Matrixport Taps Copper to Enhance Prime Brokerage

Matrixport, a digital asset financial services provider, announced its partnership with Copper.co, which offers institutional digital asset custody, for the integration of its off-exchange collateral management and settlement solution, ClearLoop. The integration will allow Matrixport clients to store their digital assets securely.

"Copper. co's solution delivers unfettered access to an extensive list of high-volume exchanges while minimizing exchange counterparty exposure. Clear loop empowers us to offer our clients a more secure and capital-efficient way to trade and invest in digital assets," said Daniel Egloff, the Head of Prime Brokerage at Matrixport.

ATFX Gets New Country Manager in Colombia

ATFX, a forex and CFDs broker, is strengthening its presence in Latin America with the appointment of Irvin Ortega Flores as the Country Manager of Colombia. The appointment was an internal promotion.

Flores joined the Mexico offices of the broker in June 2020 as a Sales Accounting Manager and then became the IB Sales Account Manager.

Earlier this year, ATFX hired Gonzalo Canete, a former executive at Swissquote, as its Global Chief Market Strategist. The UK unit of the broker also tapped Chris James, a former member of State Street's Currenex's global liquidity management team, to head its liquidity management team.

SIX and FlexTrade's Spark EMS Tie for Real-Time Market Data

SIX and FlexTrade Systems have joined hands for the integration and availability of global real-time market pricing and reference data from SIX into the Spark cloud-based EMS solution.

The integration will provide traders using Spark EMS access to a stream of real-time global market data across multiple outputs. Further, SIX API will allow a one-click deployment of FlexTrade's cloud-based EMS solution.

"SIX API has been developed to meet the challenges of an evolving marketplace, with flexible commercial models, and is part of our investment in a strategic technology program," said Shai Popat, the Head of Product & Commercial Strategy of Financial Information at SIX. "The close partnership we have developed with FlexTrade enables us to meet market demands quickly, ultimately benefiting our mutual clients. We are thrilled to be working with the FlexTrade team."