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Barely a week goes by without a bank or ECN launching or upgrading a platform, so we weren’t cock-a-hoop when the news that Societe Generale had launched an FX single-dealer platform landed on our desks last week.
Still, it turns out there is something new to Alpha FX, so we headed down to SocGen towers in EC3 for a closer look and discovered that what really sets it apart from more established platforms is that it is, unlike some others, quite intuitive to use.
The platform is aimed at institutional clients and large corporates. For techno-geeks, it is a RIA that runs through the internet, so there is nothing to download to the desktop and no irritating updates to install. It was built using Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, much like Nomura’s FX SDP NomuraLive.
The platform was built entirely in-house between January and July this year by teams in London and Paris, a break from the past when they relied on white-label products.
Stephane Malrait, global head of e-commerce, and Reine Dossou, head of e-business for treasury, FX and derivatives, say that Alpha FX was a direct reaction to customer needs.