Best FX technology provider: ION MarketFactory

 

ION’s reliability, consistency and customer focus win it the Best FX technology provider award

Over the past 12 months – characterised by turbulent FX market conditions and market data spikes – ION MarketFactory’s flagship Whisperer Enterprise product performed impeccably as a high-throughput, low-latency product. A single application programming interface (API) connecting to more than 100 FX APIs and providing broad, in-depth coverage for all FX workflows and instruments, MarketFactory Whisperer Enterprise handled over 100,000 messages per second and kept latency down to 5–7 microseconds.

A software-as-a-service-first financial technology provider, ION MarketFactory’s products grant clients access to the entire market, regardless of location, workflow, protocol, instrument or liquidity provider. Anticipating that the FX market will grow by 10% annually, leading to further venue fragmentation, high demand for venue aggregation and an increase in venues to maintain currency liquidity, ION is actively expanding venue connectivity. Having focused resources on building 60 feeds quickly and connecting clients seamlessly, ION now supports direct connectivity points in CHI, NY4, LD4, TY3 and Singapore’s Equinix SG1. Historically, the Asian FX market was centred in TY3, but is now expanding into SG1. ION MarketFactory has therefore expanded its presence into both, allowing clients in the Asian market to avail themselves of the company’s global presence for co-location needs in international data centres. ION MarketFactory’s non-Asian clients can also use its Singapore presence to serve customers in Asia.

Despite the troubled market conditions over the past year, ION MarketFactory’s customers experienced zero connection issues. And, as a major partner of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the company helped many banks go live in the Singapore data centre, allowing them to consume and provide liquidity to the local market. ION MarketFactory also added new feeds for 38 venues, and finalised its historical data offering, which allows clients to purchase several years of market data from multiple sources, accurately time-synced to the company’s Grandmaster GPS clock.

Two key strategic partnerships were also announced in this period. The first, with Tradefeedr, enables clients to review trading markout, impacts and spreads directly with liquidity providers, using a common platform and shared datasets. The second allows ION MarketFactory’s FX venues to be reached via QuantHouse, or automated trading financial firms, through a single API, reducing integration complexity. The past year also saw the integration of MarketFactory with other ION FX products, allowing them to deliver a true end-to-end solution.

ION MarketFactory solutions do not stop at connectivity. The company also offers historical market data, and risk and infrastructure solutions.

Although historical FX data is often difficult to find, ION MarketFactory clients can purchase several years of market data from multiple sources, with the data time-synced to GPS data. On the Nexus cloud infrastructure, ION MarketFactory clients can also access top-of-the-line server configurations that serve both central processing unit-intensive and lightweight applications.

MarketFactory Reflector provides safeguards for prime brokers, eFX desks and systematic funds. It manages taker and maker trading messages between the counterparty and trading venue, and offers clients access to a range of key data. This includes real-time, pre-trade checks against global limits across all venues; Net Open Position and Daily Settlement Limits; customised limits based on currency and currency pairs, trading entity, netting and margining to capture complex relationships; and WebGUI and/or REST API administration, boasting latency speeds of 5–12 microseconds. ION MarketFactory’s solutions address the range of market complexity, so traders can focus on pricing, hedging and generating alpha.

Looking ahead, ION MarketFactory plans to partner with other ION FX products to deliver a turnkey solution requiring no additional integration while providing industry-leading connectivity. It also aims to introduce 30 new API connections by year-end, and to increase its global data centre footprint by 33% with Equinix SG1 Colo. It also intends to expand its Noida team by building another support team of 10 to provide 24-hour support alongside New York, London and Singapore.

“Since our inception in 1999, we have designed solutions and services that simplify complex processes, boost efficiency and enable better decision-making. Over the years, our business has grown steadily through a series of acquisitions, bringing together some of the best and most successful financial technology companies in the world,” says ION. “Today, ION is one of the world’s largest financial software and data firms. Superior technology, best practice service levels and market-defining intelligence are our hallmarks.”

 

ION MarketFactory was named Best FX technology provider at the FX Markets Asia FX Awards 2022.

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