FX industry veteran Dmitri Galinov has started yet another forex venture and this time it is a derivative exchange which is focused on making market access cheaper for exchange members. His new venture called 24 exchange and as per details in his LinkedIn profile, the exchange is advertised as always open which could be interpreted as around the clock availability of its fx assets and trading platform services. The firm is expected to open services for clients by end of August and will initially provide trading services on non deliverable forwards. But Galinov has also mentioned plans for adding FX swaps and underlying currencies in near future. In long term approach, Galinov has expressed intent to expand into US & European equities and fixed income trading options. When speaking about his inspiration to start this new venture Galinov commented, “24 Exchange is here to solve the problem exchange members have with rising costs of market data, clearing, and margin. Banks, hedge funds, all exchange members should be able to access the market at a price which is considerably below current rates”.
He also stated “Whether you are trading an FX NDF, Greek bonds or US stocks, the difference in the subset of the FIX API protocol used is very subtle, with only about 5 percent variation. With all participants already having agreed to use FIX API, the opportunity for cost savings is there”. Galinov’s venture is likely to end up a highly profitable venture for all those involved at little cost as he is basically just integrating infrastructure and services of existing vendors into a single network instead of setting up everything from the scratch. Galinov has invested nearly $60000 of his own money into the start-up and plans to raise nearly $1.5 million via external investors. To ensure the firm sees successful run once it debuts market, Galinov is creating an attractive offer to clients.
The NDF that the firm will provide trading services on, once launched is expected to have much lower margin costs compared by mainstream competition which they aim to achieve by minimizing interest charge and using anonymous solution as per report found in news website Financemagnates. Galinov was quoted commenting, “We hope to improve overall liquidity in the NDF market, by decreasing friction costs”. To ensure that the firm sees successful business and business process in handled efficiently, Galinov has brought two industry specialists Paul Millward and Jason Woerz who previously worked under CBOE and Bridgewater under his wing. Paul has helped build NDF products at CGI, Hotspot and CBOE while Jason has vast industry contacts and specialises in handling global multi-asset execution management experience which Galinov hopes to leverage to ensure smooth development and execution of product and business solutions at 24 exchange.
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