Market Makers MahiFX challenges the FX Agency Model

MahiFX is a new online retail foreign exchange (FX) trading business based in Christchurch, New Zealand. The company, founded by the co-creators of Barclays Capital’s BARX, the award-winning Institutional FX trading platform, has brought together an elite team of ex interbank traders, analysts, statisticians and developers.

MahiFX is headed by David Cooney, former global co-head of currency options and e-FX trading at Barclays Capital and responsible for the award winning e-commerce platform BARX and Susan Cooney, former head of electronic FX institutional sales in Europe for Barclays Capital. Operating as a market maker, MahiFX challenges the traditional broker model by providing institutional level technology and pricing directly to retail FX traders.

Leveraging their combined expertise in trading, statistical analysis and technology, MahiFX has created a trading platform that brings wholesale quality rates and an unrivalled trading experience direct to the retail FX trader.

From his small town Kiwi upbringing to becoming a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand, before leading the global currency option arms of Dresdner Bank and Barclays Bank from London, David Cooney’s journey has certainly been out of the ordinary.

He credits his success to a philosophy of finding and melding together the best team. In David’s words, “The team is everything.”

Success later at Dresdner caught the attention of Barclays Capital. They needed a proven performer to take on the challenge of Global Head of Currency Options. David’s team-based philosophy saw him bring his people over to Barclays where they developed Barclay’s FX options business into a global leader.

In parallel the team started looking at the online FX market. It was a chaotic industry fraught with inconsistent spreads, unstable platforms and general distrust by clients. David and his team built Barclays an incredibly efficient pricing and risk management system. Their knowledge and expertise in market making and risk made BARX an unstoppable system. It became a leader in the global space through its excellent pricing and innovation, along with its transparency of operation, consistency and reliability.
They also pioneered ‘precision pricing.’ The ability to generate price accuracies of 1/10 of a basis point gave them a significant competitive edge at the time. It has since become the industry standard.

MahiFX operates as a market maker providing continuous, dealable FX rates to retail customers that wish to trade on a margin/leveraged basis. The platform’s sophisticated proprietary software systems
have been designed:

(a) To execute retail customers’ orders with no human intervention; and
(b) To aggregate and manage the resulting FX risk

By removing the brokerage layer and its costs, MahiFX is able to offer its retail forex clients unrivalled direct access to highly competitive market maker rates.
The MahiFX platform features a wide range of analytical tools to accommodate the varying trading styles and expertise levels of its client base. In addition, whether expert, novice or somewhere in between, traders will have access to learning resources that include webinars, video tutorials and community discussion forums.
MahiFX launches as a web-based platform and will also be compatible with iOS and Android powered devices to deliver full mobile trading functionality. MahiFX is regulated by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC).

Continuing the spirit of innovation, they have released a new suite of charting components and market-timing technical analysis features and indicators. The platform enhancements are intended to equip traders with the tools required to better interpret currency graphs and to execute more informed trading strategies. The new charting package also provides MahiFX traders with the ability to zoom, draw and trade directly from the interactive charts.

Commenting on the release David Cooney, CEO said: “Our ambition is to provide traders with the best possible trading platform. We intend to continually engineer and evolve the platform based on our clients’ feedback. This first major release since our launch two months ago is a direct result of conversations we have had with our clients; conversations which have highlighted just how important charting and technical analysis tools are to them.”

The new fully customisable charting and technical analysis features provide traders with Indicator, Overlay and Trend Line tools to analyse and interpret currencies and movements in real-time. MahiFX traders can now examine trends by deploying trend-following Moving Averages indicators including Exponential Moving Average (EMA) or the Weighted Moving Average (WMA) or utilise other trend indicators such as the Parabolic Stop and Reverse system (PSAR) and Donchian Channels. Momentum indicators such as the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Rate of Change (ROC) are among many that traders can utilise to assist in trading ranging and trending markets and to determine preferred entry and exit points.

MahiFX also features a popular ‘Quick Order’ functionality which gives traders the ability to post bids and offers very close to or even inside the spread with only a couple of clicks.

Accompanying the release, MahiFX has refreshed its home page, uploaded video interviews with David Cooney and provided Indicator tutorials for traders less familiar with technical analysis or for those seeking a refresher course.

MahiFX has also recently launched a blog providing the Forex community with a portal to share industry news, opinion, trends and trading strategies. Current posts include: “The fuss about Forex Scalping” and “The big FX myth: do Market Makers trade against me?” Forex-industry related guest blog entries are welcome and can be submitted at blog@mahifx.com

To tweet this news, copy and paste: MahiFX introduces new #Forex indicators and ability to zoom, draw and trade on the charts. https://mahifx.com/indicators/ to your twitter handle with suggested hashtags #FX #Trading

He credits his success to a philosophy of finding and melding together the best team. In David’s words, “The team is everything.”

(a) To execute retail customers’ orders with no human intervention; and
(b) To aggregate and manage the resulting FX risk

MahiFX also features a popular ‘Quick Order’ functionality which gives traders the ability to post bids and offers very close to or even inside the spread with only a couple of clicks.