Like many firms across the Globe, the IS Prime team is now working from home and adjusting to a new way of living and working.

Recently, there have been some new offerings coming on to the market offering retail brokers direct access to liquidity. The implication is that by accessing the primary market “directly”, the broker will get better trading terms. 

This is actually not the case, and it shows a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of the technology companies who are providing the offering, and even more surprisingly, the “Prime of Primes” who are “clearing"it.

3 March 2020 – London headquartered IS Prime is the 15^th fastest growing financial services company in Europe, according to the Financial Times’ list of Europe’s 1000 fastest growing companies, published on FT.com on 2 March 2020.

February was an excellent month for brokers as Covid-19 coronavirus fears brought volatility to a wide range of markets. Volumes were up substantially from January, with some brokers reaching record monthly totals.

Profits were also robust, driven primarily by late month declines in stock indices and gold. With the uncertainty surrounding coronavirus continuing, the volatility may persist well into March, if not longer.

28 February 2020 –  IS Prime has been named one of the world’s most influential financial technology companies, following nominations by a panel of expert judges from some of the most respected companies in the financial services industry including EY, Lloyds Banking and Baringa.

In previous blog posts we have discussed how traders sometimes take advantage of unwary brokers by engaging in various forms of malicious activity (such as flooding trade servers with orders), and why it’s critical for brokers to optimise their risk management strategies to minimise their risks.

2020 is off to a strong start as volumes and profits rebounded from a pedestrian month of December.

Early month profits were driven primarily by Gold, and the month finished strong on late month movements in the Euro. Indices also produced profits throughout the month as reactions to the spread of the coronavirus added volatility to equity markets.

IS Prime Hong Kong, part of ISAM Capital Markets, has just announced that it has been granted a Type 3 Leveraged Foreign Exchange Trading licence by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).

Good workflow and optimisation go hand in hand. Indeed, the terms are almost synonymous.

What makes the difference between success and failure in the retail FX marketplace?

When the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) introduced its new trading rules in 2018, retail brokers had to rethink their strategies due to the more demanding regulatory environment and the corresponding squeeze in profits. In particular, following the Product Intervention Measures, brokers have been looking beyond Europe in order to diversify their client base and maintain volumes. 

In this article we explore best practices on liquidity management and how IS Prime and the ISAM capital markets group interact with liquidity providers.

4th November 2019 – IS Prime has reported continued growth, with a 60% increase in turnover y/e 31 March 2019.

Liquidity is one of, if not the most important parts of a broker’s business and is one of its key differentiators - without the right pricing in the right products delivered in the right way it is extremely difficult for brokers to survive in this increasingly competitive environment. As a result, the proper assessment and selection of an FX Liquidity Provider is something that brokers should undertake very carefully.

At IS Risk Analytics, we oversee over 1 Trillion USD in notional volume on a monthly basis. This includes startup brokers, established powerhouses and everything in between.

Within our client books we see all of the tricks malicious “retail traders” use to take advantage of brokers. This includes cross broker arbitrage, malicious Expert Advisors (EAs), spraying the market, spoofing, the list goes on.

August 21 2019, London and New York - Award winning Prime of Prime and Liquidity Provider, IS Prime has extended its liquidity distribution by connecting to TradAir, a leading provider of FX and Digital Asset trading solutions. 

When I sat on a panel at the FX Week conference in London alongside representatives from industry peers, we were all asked  “how does the cost of your service compare to the cost of a Tier 1 PB?”  The response of our peers was unanimous and astonishing, all of them stating that their service will be “a little more expensive” than a Tier 1 PB.  

12 July 2019 – IS Prime has been named Best Prime of Prime Provider at the prestigious e-FX Awards, organised by FX Week. The award recognises the most comprehensive and satisfactory service provider in the Prime of Prime space.

In 2015, I wrote an opinion piece about the inherent inefficiencies of re-aggregation of Prime of Prime feeds and I believe it is a good time to refresh this topic from a different perspective.

Today we are pleased to announce that IS Risk Analytics has released its brand new risk engine and bridge software, an exciting step for the product and team, delivering market leading risk management tools and services to their clients.

Since early May this year, gold prices have been increasing almost daily, to the extent that we are now at a similar level to the highs of August 2013, in USD terms.

Report identifies fastest-growing and most dynamic small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) across the UK

Today we were delighted to learn that IS Prime has been voted by readers of Profit and Loss as the Best FX Prime of Prime Services Provider, in their 2019 Readers’ Choice Awards, otherwise known as the FoXys.

Imagine the situation… you are sitting on the trading desk reviewing activity for the day and you come across a pocket of traders who were able to arbitrage your feed systematically. It has been a few hours since the transactions took place. The traders have already transferred the profits to linked accounts which have since withdrawn the funds. Now you must explain how this happened to your Head of Risk and CEO, who will undoubtedly not be pleased to hear the news.