It was a relatively quiet, holiday-shortened week in the world of FX and CFD trading, but there was still some pertinent industry news to report – plus a handful of interesting executive moves among firms and personalities in the sector.
What did MT5 developer MetaQuotes have to say about the use of its trading platform, a month after MT5 iOS was returned to the Apple App Store?
How did NAGA Group fare in Q1 2023?
Which former Retail FX broker CEO was hired by Investing.com, as its new CTO?
Where did former Spotware Head of Marketing Aris Christoforou land?
Some of the most read and commented-on FX industry news stories to appear over the past seven days on FNG included:
Exclusive: MetaQuotes sees record number of MetaTrader 5 iOS users after App Store return. FNG Exclusive… Trading platform developer MetaQuotes has informed FNG that the monthly audience of MetaTrader 5 for iOS set a record in the first month after returning to the Apple App Store. MT5 was reinstated to the App Store in early March, as was also exclusively reported here at FNG, after Apple had removed MT5 (as well as its older cousin, MT4) in late September 2022. MetaQuotes said that the current MAU (monthly active users) value significantly exceeded the one observed before the blocking.
NAGA reports Revenues of €11.6M in Q1-2023, return to (EBITDA) profitability. Social and copy trading focused Retail FX and CFDs broker NAGA Group (ETR:N4G) has released a brief summary of its Q1 results, indicating that after a loss-making 2022 the company returned to above breakeven, following a series of cost cutting measures. On the top line, NAGA – which operates offshore (St Vincent & The Grenadines) site naga.com and CySEC-licensed nagamarkets.com – indicated that the company brought in €11.6 million in Revenues in Q1 2023. That seems to be both good and bad news.
IG Group acquires the Small Exchange from Foris DAX Markets. Electronic trading major IG Group, whose U.S. presence includes IG North America, as well as tastytrade, tastylive, tasty software solutions and IG US, today announced that it had entered into an agreement with Foris DAX Markets, Inc. to acquire the Small Exchange, a futures exchange based in Chicago and launched in 2019. IG Group previously held a stake in the Small Exchange, which was acquired by Foris DAX Markets, Inc., the parent company of Crypto.com, in March 2022.
CMC Markets Connect expands Dubai office. CMC Markets Connect, the liquidity and white label trading solutions arm of London based online brokerage CMC Markets (LON:CMCX), has had a physical presence in the United Arab Emirates since 2019 and has now announced the further expansion of operations from its upgraded Dubai office. CMC Markets Connect will be staffing the office using both the incumbent team, plus a mix of locally recruited staff as well as a series of relocations from across the global business, ensuring continuity for existing clients in the region.
Top FX industry executive moves reported at FNG this week included:
❑ Exclusive: INFINOX Bus Dev head Tiago da Costa Cardoso moves to Exinity.
❑ Exclusive: iS Prime Head of Asia Will Robbins departs.
❑ IG Group appoints Adam Wheelwright as new CTO.
❑ Exclusive: Investing.com hires former Tradeo CEO Yonatan Adest as CTO.
❑ Fortex hires ex Spotware exec Aris Christoforou as Head of Marketing.
❑ Exclusive: Paul Cusack joins Crossover Markets as Operations head.
❑ Exclusive: SquaredFinancial IT head Thekla Paschali becomes CTO at Payabl.
