News Nuggets | 4 May: FCA on Whistleblower; Equinix's Q1 Results

HFM Hires Markets.com’s Yaqub Tale as Country Head in Kenya

HFM, a retail forex and CFDs brokerage that recently rebranded from HotForex, has appointed Yaqub Tale as its Head of Country in Kenya. Tale until the appointment was a Regional Business Consultant for East Africa at online trading provider, Markets.com, for nearly two years.

Tale, who brings about five years of trading industry experience to the new role, announced his appointment on Thursday through LinkedIn, noting that he is “ready to hit the ground running.”

According to his LinkedIn profile, Tale started out his journey in the trading industry in October 2018 as an Account Relationship Manager at EGM Securities. Later, he would rise to Head of Partnerships at the Kenya-based non-dealing forex brokerage in January 2020.

Deutsche Börse’s 360T Appoints Head of Sales for Central Europe

360T, one of Europe’s biggest institutional forex trading platforms, has elevated Sarah Pittroff to the position of Head of Sales for Central Europe. The executive announced her appointment through LinkedIn on Thursday.

Pittroff is a long-time executive of 360T, having joined the Deutsche Börse Group’s global FX unit in July 2010 as a Key Account Manager for Germany. She served as the Head of Corporate Sales for Germany over the past five years.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Pittroff previously worked for Bloomberg between 2007 and 2010 as Account Manager for Financial Sales.

Mary Anne Wiley Selected as New Chair of Nasdaq Canada

Nasdaq has appointed Mary Anne Wiley, the Director and Chair of the Nominating Committee of Nasdaq Canada, as the new Chair of the Canadian Exchange Board. Wiley, who is the Former Managing Director and Head of iShares Canada at BlackRock, replaces Michael Foulkes who has retired after serving as the Chair of the Board since 2018, Nasdaq said on Thursday.

The former MD’s appointment caps other selections made to the Board of Directors, Nasdaq said. The other appointments include Susan Monteith and Gerry Throop as Independent Directors and Dan Kessou as the Director and Chief Executive Officer. Furthermore, Tal Cohen and Kevin Kennedy were tapped as Directors.

Nasdaq Canada was established to extend Nasdaq's North American trading platform in Canada.

FCA Gears Up to Boost Whistleblower Confidence

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is taking steps to improve the confidence of whistleblowers, primarily by enhancing interaction. The regulator will provide more details to whistleblowers on steps taken based on the shared information.

The financial watchdog will improve the use of whistleblowers' information and improve ways of capturing the information.

"We need the intelligence whistleblowers provide to identify and act on problems in the firms we regulate," said Therese Chambers, the Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight at the FCA.

"We want to make sure we're capturing and using the information provided by whistleblowers as effectively as possible, and to give them as much information as the law allows on how we have acted on their concerns."

Meanwhile, the UK recently drafted a plan to fight the rampant frauds that account for 40 percent of crimes in the country.

Equinix's Q1 Revenue Jumps 15%

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), which provides digital infrastructure in the financial services industry, reported revenue of $2 billion for the first quarter of 2023. The figure came in 15 percent higher year-over-year and 7 percent greater than the previous quarter.

The company ended the three months with a net income of $259 million, which doubled quarter-over-quarter. EBITDA at $944 million was 13 percent higher than the previous quarter, with an adjusted margin of 47 percent.

Following the first quarter's results, Equinix is now eying to end 2023 with revenue between $8.175 billion and $8.275 billion, which is an increase of 13 to 14 percent over the previous year. In addition, it aims for an EBITDA between $3.635 billion and $3.715 billion.

"We had a strong start to the year... as our outlook remains positive with the overall demand for digital transformation fueling our conviction around the long-term secular drivers of our business," said Charles Meyers, the President and CEO at Equinix.

Consob Flags 4 More Illegal Trading Platforms

Consob, the financial market regulator in Italy, has added four additional names to its elaborated list of illegal financial services platforms offering services in the country.

The recently added names are:

• IKON CFD
• BTC Capital Group
• Trezocapital
• EZ2GO Ltd

Access to these platforms will be blocked at the internet provider level. The latest addition has taken the total number of websites blocked out since July 2019 to 886.

Iress Taps Kaiko for Digital Assets Data

Iress has partnered with Kaiko to deliver cryptocurrency market data to institutional clients. The data service is available in Iress's FeedOS format, enabling clients to integrate them into existing workflows.

"At Iress we continually talk to clients about their evolving data needs. We constantly monitor the market for additional capabilities we can add to our offering, giving clients the very best information possible to guide their trading decisions," said Salloum AbouSaleh, Iress' Managing Director for Americas.

"In Kaiko we have found the perfect best-in-class partner to help us add to the universe of data we provide. Kaiko's high-quality data also crucially covers a wealth of historical data, making it extremely valuable to clients."

CryptoOrange Adds Paysafe as Payments Partner

The cryptocurrency exchange, CryptoOrange announced its partnership with the payments platform, Paysafe to enhance deposit and withdrawal methods for international users.

Paysafe also facilitates the payments infrastructure for several other major crypto exchanges, including Binance. Recently, the company expanded its reach in Latin America with the acquisition of two local payments companies.

"Providing our customers with a seamless payment experience is absolutely central to our success," said Dejan Jurša, the Founder of CryptoOrange. "By partnering with Paysafe, through one contact and connection, we can offer the widest range of payment options to our customers, provide a smoother payment process, and expand more easily into new territories."

OKX Ventures Backs AlienSwap

OKX Ventures, the investment arm of crypto exchange OKX, has invested an unknown sum in the community-based NFT marketplace and aggregator AlienSwap. The investment came two months after the beta launch of AlienSwap.

The NFT platform will use the proceeds to scale its growth and aims to become one of the top NFT marketplaces. Currently, with more than $50 million in trading volume, AlienSwap ranks third in daily active users and fifth in daily trading volume on the Ethereum network.

"The new investments will be used to expand the AlienSwap engineering team, develop innovative liquidity tools and trading products for NFTs, and increase investment in NFT infrastructure to enhance the community's trading experience," said Ying Mu, the Founder of AlienSwap.

Thanks to all the friends who support us, this is a new beginning.👽🫡

Let's explore the NFT eco together, build @AlienSwap_NFT, and don't stop working hard until reaching the top ⛰️ https://t.co/FJDlWqLnX4

— BitYingMu👽 (@bityingmu) May 4, 2023