A financial and trading industry veteran with over 25 years of experience, Benjamin Londergan, joined Simplex Trading in June as the Managing Director of Strategic Business Development.

Simplex Trading Adds New Managing Director

In his new role, Londergan will support Simplex in maintaining its position in the proprietary trading and market-making sectors. Although he spent the last seven years outside the financial industry, operating as Chief Operating Officer for CarAdvise, he has previously worked for several well-known trading firms.

These include Options, TraderTools, Belvedere Trading, Convergex, and CBOE. Additionally, from 1998 onwards, he served for over 15 years as President of Group One Trading, which, like Simplex, specializes in prop trading.

"We are happy to introduce Benjamin Londergan, Managing Director of Strategic Business Development! In his role, Ben is responsible for expanding our partnerships and current core business into new products and geographies," commented Simplex.

What's New in the World of Prop Trading?

The rising popularity of trader-funded firms, often referred to as prop trading firms, has drawn the attention of regulators. An industry source informed Finance Magnates that the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) recently reviewed these firms and deliberated on potential regulations. Despite this, the pan-European regulator did not confirm any plans to regulate prop trading.

Following Finance Magnates' exclusive report on ESMA 's discussions, the Czech National Bank has become the first EU regulator to comment publicly on the industry.

"The business models used by firms engaged in prop trading (technically funded trader services) can take various forms, some of which may be subject to the MiFID regulatory framework,” the Czech National Bank told Finance Magnates exclusively. In this context, It's worth mentioning that one of the top prop trading companies, FTMO, is domiciled in the Czech Republic.

In the meantime, The prop trading firm Alpha Capital Group has come under fire from some clients after their accounts were blocked. However, the mass blocking of access to trading for 150 different users was allegedly due to suspicions of engaging in "group trading" and "account management practices," which violate the platform's rules.