Digitec Opens London Office, von Massenbach to Head
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: June 29, 2021
FX swaps and NDF pricing and data provider Digitec has opened a London office and named Stephan von Massenbach as managing director and chief revenue officer.
The firm says the new office is a response to a growing number of enquiries from banks and trading desks located in the centre, although as von Massenbach notes, “While our client base is global, London is the largest FX centre so it makes sense to be here, where so many of our clients have a significant presence.”
Peer Joost, COO of Digitec, adds, “A London office also allows us to interact more frequently with market participants to get their thinking on the direction of travel for the industry. We can take these ideas, overlay our own, and not only develop new products but evolve our existing solutions.”
Most recently von Massenbach was CEO of advisory firm Modular Financial Technologies and head of Modular FX Services, a business he established after leaving Lloyds Bank in London where he was head of FX e-commerce. Prior to Lloyds, he spent 10 years at JP Morgan, most latterly as head of FX e-commerce sales for EMEA. “Stephan brings extensive experience of FX e-commerce sales and deep domain knowledge, business development expertise and a wealth of senior industry relationships,” says Joost. “This is very much the start of a build up in our sales effort – although we have done well and have over 40 clients globally, this has been achieved with a small sales force. We feel the time is right to increase our efforts.”
Digitec has made a splash in recent years with the development of the Swaps Data Feed (SDF) with 360T, although it has a longer standing presence in the industry with its D3 pricing engine technology. “A London office allows us to capture the growing demand for automated FX swaps and NDF trading, as well extend product coverage to include pricing for precious metals, interest rates and crypto assets,” says von Massenbach.
While new asset classes are an opportunity for Digitec, so too, von Massenbach believes, is an expanded client base. “As the market structure evolves, so banks recognise there is a need for a different pricing infrastructure, and today people are considering outside options, not just the in-house build,” he explains. “This is not just the bigger players, for something as core as a pricing engine for FX swaps a lot of institutions are genuinely interested in the cloud because it makes such a solution more accessible to a broader range of participants.”
Certainly with the FX technology landscape so fragmented, it makes sense for Digitec to move beyond its existing Hamburg environs, but it also seems the right time for the company to leverage the exposure it has had with the SDF to expand its footprint. “The SDF is a door opener, but so too is D3, which is the pricing engine for the SDF,” says Joost. “With FX swaps and NDFs becoming more automated, we believe there is a great opportunity to leverage our work of the past 40 years since the company was formed.”