OneCoin Settlement, Volumes and Earnings Updates: Editor's Pick

In a busy, if an unspectacular week of news, here are the stories that dominated the forex, fintech and crypto worlds, in our best of the week segment.

OneCoin Investors Settle with Co-Mastermind Konstantin Ignatov

As Finance Magnates reported on Friday, OneCoin investors have agreed for a settlement with Konstantin Ignatov, the defendant and co-mastermind of the infamous $4 billion crypto scam.

The settlement followed Ignatov’s request for more time to respond to the complaint.

He is also awaiting sentencing for his role in the crypto scam as the court pointed out that he is still negotiating with the US prosecutors about his plea deal.

Revolut Extends Open Banking Service, Launches in Italy

UK challenger bank Revolut has expanded its Open Banking service to another European country, with the company announcing this Tuesday that it launched the service in Italy.

As Finance Magnates reported, Revolut has been expanding its Open Banking service across Europe after its launch in February. Recently, the UK fintech launched the service in France and over in Ireland.

Revolut users in Italy can now connect their Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit, UBI Banca, Banco BPM, Poste Italiane bank accounts.

Read more on the Revolut Italy Launch here.

Romanian ASF Forms New Wing to Crackdown on Unregistered Brokers

The Romanian Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) has formed a new department to actively monitor unauthorized companies offering investment and other financial services in the country.

According to multiple local news outlets, the new wing has been formed by amending the existing regulatory frameworks, and it came into effect on August 1.

The newly formed monitoring body will have multiple roles in cleansing the illegal market operators and comes after a number of complaints regarding practices.

Read more on the Romanian ASF FX crackdown here

Bitcoin Has Held Over $10k for Nearly Two Weeks: What Happens Now?

As Bitcoin seems to have broken the cursed $10,000 mark, Finance Magnates asks What’s driving this latest bull run? Will Bitcoin keep up its momentum, or will BTC once again fall below $10k?

With expert insights from Marie Tatibouet, Chief Marketing Officer at Gate.io, Sergei Khtirov, founder and chief executive of Listing.Help, and Daniel Worsley, co-founder, and chief operating officer of LocalCoinSwap, Bitcoin's next moves are discussed in full.

OKEx to Launch P2P Crypto Exchange in India

In a Finance Magnates exclusive, we revealed that OKEx, a cryptocurrency spot and derivatives exchange based in Malta, is announcing the launch of a peer-to-peer trading platform in India.

The new platform will allow Indian users to buy Cryptocurrencies with Indian rupees (INR) without paying any transaction fees.

Volumes and Earnings Reports

It was a busy week for the release of earnings and volumes reports.

DGCX Reports 357% YoY Jump in July Trading Volumes

The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) is witnessing a strong demand for forex trading as in July, the volumes for its G6 currency portfolio jumped 357 percent year-over-year.

Tuesday’s press release detailed that the three leading foreign exchanges for the month were Japanese yen, British pound, and euro as their average daily volume (ADV) surged by 767 percent, 267 percent, and 263 percent, respectively.

XTX Markets Posts Healthy Revenue and Profit Uptick for 2019

XTX Markets, a leading non-bank Liquidity provider in the forex industry, has published its annual financials ending on December 31, 2019, showing a year-on-year revenue jump of 11.3 percent with a total of £339.8 million for the year.

Read more on the XTX Markets revenues here

CFTC Data Shows Flat Growth in Retail FX Deposits for June

Data from the US securities regulator for June shows that all registered retail FX platforms added less than $5 million in clients’ deposits. The less than one percent increase came despite trading activity was surging in other segments amid a boom in retail investing during an unprecedented time for financial markets.

After consecutive increases in its market share, IG US suffered a slight drop in retail deposits in June 2020. Specifically, the broker’s net balances decreased by $118,000, or one percent, to $20.7 million. The US arm of Europe’s largest spread better has been the best performer over the last year after recording an overall rise of nearly 600 percent in traders’ deposits relative to the figures it booked when the company re-launched its operations a year ago.

Trading Volumes Ease at Interactive Brokers, But Traders’ Bets Increase

Trading activity at Interactive Brokers LLC (NASDAQ: IBKR) lost momentum in July with volumes easing on a monthly comparison basis following strong gains in June. The broker, however, posted its third-best reading for Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs), a sign that trades continue to meaningfully accelerate along with the pandemic volatility, even thru the summer months.

During July 2020, the number of DARTs, a standard industry metric, was reported at 1.79 million transactions, a fall of 4 percent month-over-month from 1.86 million in June and a record high of 1.96 million‎ in June. On a year-on-year basis, Interactive Brokers saw a brighter performance in its DARTs with July’s figure up 124 percent relative to nearly 800k transactions reported in the same month last year.

Read more on the Interactive Brokers DARTs here

StoneX Posts Positive Financial Results for Fiscal Q3, But Disappoints QoQ

StoneX (formerly known as INTL FCStone) released its financial results for the fiscal third quarter ending June 30, 2020, showing a modest increase in revenues relative to last year.

StoneX’s net revenues for Q3 2020 increased five percent from a year earlier. This came in at $8.24 billion compared to $7.87 billion reported back in the April to June quarter of 2019. Over a quarterly basis, however, the company revenue nearly halved from $20.4 billion for the three months to March 2020.