Expansion On The Agenda - Fair Trading Technology Recruits CHRO To Select Talent To Move The Firm Forward

Three years may seem a relatively short period of time in the life of a business, however to say that a degree of change has come about in the Forex Forex Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Read this Term industry within that length of time would be somewhat of an understatement.

The shift toward the STP model on the retail side of the business has created substantial business need for technology providers to expand their service offerings to cater for retail brokers wishing to operate a direct market access model, most of the developments in this direction having occurred since 2010.

During that year, FX technology hub Fair Trading Technology was founded, established what was at the time relatively small share of the market. Upgrades were performed to the company’s offering just last month in the form of major enhancements to its T3 BrokerTools product.

Talent Hunting

The company has engaged in the recruitment of senior level executives this year, the most recent of which is today’s appointment of Lisa Bogren in the capacity of the company’s first Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO).

Ms. Bogren's appointment represents a major step for Fair Trading Technology as an employer, as Ms. Bogren will be actively involved in expanding the company’s staff from its current 40 employees.

Lisa has a broad background within human resources and has worked in a cross section of aspects within the HR operation, ranging from recruitment and employer branding, fast company growth and change management, employee motivation and performance, management support and HR legislation and work environment as well as downsizing of an organization and Union relations. She is new to the industry, and has previously worked within the Recruitment/Staffing business, Technical Engineering and Retail Industry to mention just a few.

Lisa has an academic background within Human Resources Management, Organizational Psychology and Communication and is a certified consultant for the DISC analysis tool IPU. Lisa has worked with the Fair Trading Technology team on a consultative basis since January 2011 and is well integrated in the company prior taking on this role within the management team.

“Fair Trading Technology is a company that is full of great spirits, innovation, creativity and drive. It has an amazing group of employees and I'm honored to be part of the team," commented Ms. Bogren on her appointment.

"The current stage of the company is very exciting as we are welcoming new colleagues every month.” said Ms. Bogren. “I'm glad to be in the position to give more people the opportunity to be a part of this journey."

Fair Trading Technology Chief Marketing Officer Karl Alfredsson welcomes Ms. Bogren to the new role. “It's a great pleasure to welcome Ms. Bogren to the team. We are expanding rapidly and she will be a great resource in managing this growth."

Mr. Alfredsoon further emphasized to Forex Magnates the talent pools that the firm seeks to recruit from in order to expand: “The urgency right now is on sales and new product development, as well as maintaining a high level of service and system integrity. We are lucky to have really talented people in our team” explained Mr. Alfredsson.

Sales and Technology Recruitment Drive

“As we move forward we are looking for even more talent in sales, development and operations. We are also looking to hire skilled people in quality assurance, as well as account management, letting the talented people we already have specialize in what they do best” continued Mr. Alfredsson.

Right now, we have open positions within System Development, Project Management, System Architecture, Quality Assurance and Customer Onboarding. Of course, candidates with industry knowledge are very interesting for us, but it's not a must. We are always on the look-out for talented people within their field who will provide depth in knowledge to our already skilled team” he concluded.

There has been much technological development around the issue of connectivity and data availability recently, with a substantial number of mergers and acquisitions as well as corporate alliances which have seen software companies linking up to large institutional networks having taken place in a very short time, indicating that large software conglomerates are interested in seeking specialists in this area to join forces with.

As Fair Trading Technology seeks to expand at such a rate, it would certainly be open to supposition that the firm could be looking to join this trend.

On this point, Mr. Alfredsson pointed out that “the firm’s CEO Tim Haman said at last year’s TradeTech FX London event that retail is not retail anymore. What he meant was that the lines are getting more and more blurred, with people from the institutional space looking at retail, both for ideas and technology, but also to move into that space.”

“We are constantly looking for ways to Bridge Bridge The bridge or liquidity bridge is an essential component for brokers that are enabling their clients to trade at interbank rates directly via a Prime Broker or a Prime-of-Prime (PoP). While market makers do not require a bridge in order to service their clients, brokers which are sending through orders to a liquidity provider or an electronic execution venue need a bridge to connect their trading platform to the interbank market.Bridges are used extensively in forex trading, specifically for Met The bridge or liquidity bridge is an essential component for brokers that are enabling their clients to trade at interbank rates directly via a Prime Broker or a Prime-of-Prime (PoP). While market makers do not require a bridge in order to service their clients, brokers which are sending through orders to a liquidity provider or an electronic execution venue need a bridge to connect their trading platform to the interbank market.Bridges are used extensively in forex trading, specifically for Met Read this Term that gap between institutional and retail. We see the bridging of this gap as a medium term objective as this "blurring" of lines continues.

“We already have boots on the ground in North America even though the market is matured and well regulated, to say the least; there are some other ways to access that market. We are currently working on a few products with this market in mind”.

The MetaQuotes Debacle

With the firm’s future plans for expansion comes exposure to new markets and this can result in the requirement to seek solutions to aspects discovered in approaching such things. Forex Magnates posed the question, bearing in mind the need to expand as a technology provider, to Fair Trading Technology’s CEO Tim Haman as to how the company plans combat the MetaQuotes assault on third party providers and safeguard its place in the market.

“Our company is a technology provider, and a large portion of our offering is software based. We don't know how MetaQuotes came to the conclusion that some companies where violating the licensing agreement, that wasn't demonstrated” explained Mr. Haman.

“However, if you hack or break into a protocol, if that is what happened, you would be riding on the success of another company, and it would undermine the credibility and security of the software. If that hack were to destabilize the service, whose fault would it be when the server stops?”

Mr. Haman summed up this dynamic by saying that “we all know that the industry is changing.”

“Fair Trading Technology is well positioned to cater to the changes, and allow for new exiting development to evolve the industry. Sometimes the end-user, the trader, is forgotten, which leaves all of us providers with a mission: to make it better for the trader. The traders are the brokers’ customers. The brokers are our customers”.

A Global Perspective

On that note, Mr. Alfredsson elaborated on which areas the firm wishes to explore: “We have customers from all of the important FX clusters already, such as Asia and Europe. We are seeing more and more demand from Asia, which is exciting, but technical development will still be done in Sweden in order to maintain high quality products. We are, however, planning to establish customer facing functions in those areas. Sales, onboarding and Account Management is our main focus there.