Finance Feeds was at the TradeTech FX USA 2022, which took place at the Eden Roc Resort in Miami.
The conference brought together the leading buy-side heads of FX and portfolio management in the first return to face-to-face events since the pandemic began.
Contrary to what would be expected out of a pandemic-ridden world economy, the FX industry didn’t slow down. Quite the opposite, in fact, and participants gathered in Miami to learn and discuss the news, innovation, and other pressing matters in the sector.
FinanceFeeds Editor-in-Chief Nikolai Isayev had the chance to conduct an interview with Travis Schwab, Chief Executive Officer at Eventus Systems, a leading provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring solutions.
Eventus Systems was present at Tradetech FX USA 2022 after a boom year in 2021. The firm completed a $30 million Series B funding round to scale the business, entered the Australia and Canada markets, launched Project TEN together with Notabene and TRM Labs, and grew from a 15-20 person operation to 90 people in two years. “The entire organization changed from top to bottom”, Schwab commented.
The RegTech firm handles all types of customers, he said, as some firms take a very innovative approach to regulation and compliance, jumping the curve, and other clients are just responding to what exists.
As Eventus enters Australia and Canada, it is interesting to note the different approach to each jurisdiction. “Australia is an equity, futures play. We’re growing from there. In Canada, we’re starting out in the crypto side of things”.
Indeed, the firm partnered with Australian stockbroker Morrison Securities for its multi-asset surveillance in mid-2021. In Canada, cryptocurrency exchange Bitbuy deployed the Eventus Validus platform to address the new regulatory framework for digital assets in the jurisdiction, which requires platforms to monitor participants within their markets.
Although FX industry executives usually welcome new regulatory initiatives on an official basis, the truth is that many complain behind closed doors. This cognitive dissonance is quite understandable, though, as industry participants must make new efforts to achieve compliance.
“Markets never become less regulated. There’s more and more. Why is that? For a safety reason and what happens is that it grows, because it’s safer”, Travis Schwab said. “We’re beginning to see that play out in crypto space. Even last week, the Chairman of the CFTC said the agency should be regulating spot crypto markets. It’s going to happen. In the FX space, you have the FX Global Code though it doesn’t have the regulatory teeth behind it”.
As new regulations come into effect, Eventus is there to help companies comply in an effective and efficient way.
“We never cheer regulation, but we’re trying to make sure you’re optimizing your infrastructure around those regulations. Speaking from someone that has been in the capital markets for 25 years, regulation is positive over the course of time because it makes markets safer and allows more participants to join. We’ll see that same thing reflected in crypto and FX markets today”.
Eventus started out in the US equity market, “which is the most prescriptive regulatory structure on the planet”, which made all other asset classes and jurisdictions somewhat less challenging for them. Almost like “peeling away pieces of that infrastructure”.
The company is targeting both traditional finance and cryptocurrency as it expands into new geographies. The chief executive cannot deny the opportunity stemming from the digital asset class, “a massive market”.
And it is the emergence of crypto that led Eventus to form Project TEN, together with TRM Labs and Notabene, to offer a one-stop compliance solution for the digital asset ecosystem.
Project TEN solves the pointed regulatory issues for digital asset firms, including cryptocurrency anti-money laundering (AML), trade surveillance, as well as Travel Rule compliance for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs).
As the world of finance never stops evolving, regulators won’t stop trying to fix it, which leads Eventus to never stop developing its solutions and infrastructure. “There are a lot of moving pieces in regulation”.
The interview ended with Travis Schwab sharing with Finance Feeds’ Nikolai Isayev that Eventus made its first acquisition in a new space, with details to be announced later this year. He reiterated that the firm is focused on scaling and catching all opportunities, with the digital asset space seen as “tremendous”.
