News Nuggets | 19 June: TipRanks Wins Fintech Award; Ex-Scope Markets' Exec at Titan FX

Israeli Fintech TipRanks Emerges Winner of Objetivo Fintech Award

TipRanks, an Israel-based financial big data company that makes institutional-grade research tools and data available to retail investors, has successfully triumphed in first place in the second year of the annual Objetivo Fintech Award.

The event, which celebrates innovation in the fintech industry, was held in the Vector Metaverse and was hosted by SofiA, the first virtual assistant in Latin America’s fintech industry. Vector Casa de Bolsa, the Mexican investment bank and securities brokerage that organized the award in partnership with venture capital firm, Finnovista, announced TipRanks as the premier winner on Monday.

The winning position comes with a prize of $100,000 and a potential partnership with Vector. Toggle, an American fintech firm that provides investment intelligence emerged as the first runner-up, coming in second place, while Finerio Connect, a Mexico-based open finance company, also succeeded as a contender and came in third. All three winners were awarded unique and collectible non-fungible tokens.

According to Vector, TipRanks was awarded the top position for its offering that provides investors with ‘a comprehensive tool’ to make better financial decisions based on reliable data. It added that TipRanks’ services help “promote information transparency by monitoring and measuring the performance of more than 96,000 financial experts, including Wall Street analysts, financial bloggers, hedge funds, and corporate experts.”

Talking about the award, Gilad Gat, TipRanks’ Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, noted that the award will inspire the company to remain steadfast with its expansion plans.

“We are greatly flattered by this important award; undoubtedly one of the most important recognitions for the fintech ecosystem globally and with great impact in Latin America.”

Former Credit Suisse Board Member Appointed UBS Group Treasurer

UBS has appointed Mirko Bianchi as Group Treasurer, the Swiss lender said in an internal memo published last week and has been seen by Reuters today (Monday). Bianchi served as a member of the Board at Credit Suisse before UBS acquired the bank.

Before joining Credit Suisse, Bianchi worked for Unicredit, where he held several roles, including as the Group CFO, Group Treasurer, and CEO of Wealth Management and Private Banking. He will start his role on July 1.

Bianchi takes over from Bea Martin, who was appointed Head of Non-Core and Legacy and President EMEA Region in leadership changes undertaken since the takeover.

Orbex Debuts Mobile Trading App

Orbex has launched its proprietary mobile application for Android and iOS, marking a significant milestone in its digital transformation journey. The app was developed to simplify trading for clients worldwide and closely mirrors the desktop MyOrbex dashboard.

The new trading app allows clients to register new accounts, conduct KYC verification, fund trading accounts, access trading tools, provide daily market research and analysis and offer 24/5 multilingual support.

Webull Japan Initiates Domestic Stock Trading Service

Webull Japan, a subsidiary of the Webull Group, has started offering trading services for domestic stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. This move comes after the group acquired a member securities company of the exchange in 2021, followed by the release of the Japanese version of Webull's mobile securities trading app in April this year.

"The US stock online trading service, with its fractional stock trading and 24-hour ordering capabilities, has already been well received by many customers in Japan," Wataru Kojima, the President and Representative Director of Webull Japan, commented. "We are now very proud to launch a new Tokyo Stock Exchange stock trading service to customers living in Japan only two months after the initial launch of Webull App in April this year."

AMF Opens Discussion on DeFi Regulation

The French AMF has released a discussion paper examining the regulatory implications of decentralized finance (DeFi). The paper aims to define the DeFi ecosystem, its components, and associated market trends and risks while addressing governance-related issues. The AMF has invited stakeholders to contribute their insights by the end of September to inform future European and international regulatory perspectives.

"Decentralized Finance is a phenomenon still relatively unknown to the general public and is at an early stage of development. Through the reliance on distributed ledger technology and the use of crypto-assets, DeFi activities offer an alternative to traditional financial services," AMF commented in a press release.

Beeks Inks Deal with Johannesburg Stock Exchange

Beeks Group and its partner IPC have received a contract to develop cloud-based solutions for the customers of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), the largest stock exchange in Africa.

Under the collaboration, the companies will develop a managed Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution for the stock exchange. To be named Colo 2.0, the exchange will be able to offer the solution directly to its customers.

"The launch of Colo 2.0 will further entrench our position as a centre of innovation for financial markets on the African continent," said Langa Manqele, the Head of Equities and Equity Derivatives at Johannesburg Stock Exchange. "We will provide our clients with leading-edge, innovative hosting and connectivity solutions for their [collocation] needs."

Spain's CNMV Updates Names of Illegal Entities

The Spanish financial market regulator, National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), has added 12 new names to its long list of entities that are illegally offering services in the country.

"According to CNMV records, these institutions are not registered in the corresponding registry of this Commission and, therefore, are not authorised to provide investment services or other activities subject to the CNMV’s supervision," the regulator noted.

Former Scope Markets Executive Joins Titan FX

Daniel Mackenzie Clark, who has been a part of Scope Markets for over four years, has joined Titan FX, another forex and contracts for differences (CFDs) broker, as a Supervisor for Risk and Operations.

He is based in London and has already taken up the new role, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Clark joined Titan FX from Scope Markets (owned by Rostro Group) where he was the Head of Partnerships. He joined the broker's Institutional Sales team at the London offices in February 2019.

He entered the financial services industry in 2011 and worked for several companies. On top of that, he spent four years serving GKFX and took a short six months stint at Capital Index.

Binance Flags Fraudulent Nigerian Clone

Troubled Binance has recently issued a cease and desist order against 'Binance Nigeria Limited', which is not affiliated with the global crypto exchange. Binance's CEO, Changpeng Zhao, even called it a "scammer entity."

Earlier this month, Nigeria's financial regulator ordered Binance Nigeria Limited to halt services, alleging solicitation of Nigerian investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Nigeria termed the company's operations in the West African country as illegal.

Binance have issued cease & desist notice to the scammer entity "Binance Nigeria Limited".

Don't believe everything you read in the news. 🤷‍♂️

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) June 18, 2023

Elon Musk Calls Meme Coin-Linked Twitter Bot a Scam

Billionaire Elon Musk, who owns and leads the social media company, Twitter among other entities, has flagged and suspended a popular Twitter bot, calling the associated account a scam. It resulted in the tanking of the BOB coin, associated with the Twitter bot, nosediving by 45 percent.

This sure looks like a scam crypto account. If so, it will be suspended.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2023

Interestingly, Musk has actually engaged with the Bob bot several times in the past, most recently in June.

Once again, Bob nails it.

Yes, I am endorsing a political candidate because he is competent!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2022

Hong Kong's SFC Fines Securities Broker HK$1.3 Million

The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong has slapped a penalty of HK$1.3 million on Taiping Securities (HK) Co Limited (TSCL) for lapses in the company's internal controls that impacted upon the employees' dealings between 1 January 2016 and 30 November 2018.

"The SFC's investigation found that TSCL failed to put in place adequate and effective internal controls over monitoring of employee dealings," the regulatory announcement noted.

"In this connection, the senior management, the compliance department, and the responsible officer (RO) responsible for monitoring employee dealings did not have a clear and consistent understanding of their roles and duties, nor did TSCL maintain any record of their reviews on employees' transactions. There was no independent review and approval of the personal transactions of the RO, including 293 transactions that exceeded the trading limit prescribed for his personal account."

Furthermore, the regulatory investigation concluded that TSCL failed to communicate its personal dealing policy to its employees during the period in question.