Leading trade surveillance fintech makes Aussie debut

TradingHub, a global developer of risk-based trade surveillance software for financial services businesses, has opened its first Australian office, expanding its presence in the coveted APAC market.

The UK-headquartered fintech will set up shop in Sydney, which it says will help springboard its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Australia is one of the most dynamic and exciting financial markets around the world, and with that, its financial institutions face a deluge of sophisticated and unique market manipulation challenges,” said TradingHub chief executive Neil Walker.

“As ASIC and other global regulators continue to strike a more muscular stance in their enforcement, Australian financial institutions need to have access to the tailored surveillance tools and intelligence they need to meet their specific evolving regulatory expectations.”

The new Australian office will be headed by Michael McNeil, senior relationship manager for Australia, and David Farr, senior adviser. Both McNeil and Farr will report to Shayne Ganeson, TradingHub’s global head of sales and relationship management.

McNeil has held a number of senior positions within TradingHub’s sales and relationship management teams since he joined the fintech in 2018, recognised for his role in expanding the firm’s customer base across global financial hubs.

McNeil counts more than 25 years in the financial markets space, working in a variety of fixed income sales roles at Merrill Lynch, Nomura and Deutsche Bank. Prior to joining TradingHub in 2018, he was a partner at Autonomous Research.

Farr was previously executive general manager of CBA’s financial crime remediation and uplift program, among a number of other roles at the big four bank. Additionally, he previously held senior roles as MD, COO EMEA FICC at Merrill Lynch and a senior role in Risk Management at the Australian Securities Exchange.

TradingHub boasts that its software is deployed by half of the world’s largest global banks across 45 countries, which process more than 220 million trades per day. Among its customers include investment banks, asset managers, hedge funds, commodity houses, and brokerage firms, collectively representing over $20 trillion of AUM.

The fintech develops dedicated solutions for trade surveillance, financial markets anti-money laundering, best execution, and financial markets reporting and analytics.

The developer’s proprietary surveillance system, MAST, is specifically designed to detect instances of market manipulation, including cross-product abuse, primary market abuse, as well as the surveillance of activities in less transparent markets.

“This one-of-a-kind technology has resulted in TradingHub quickly becoming a foremost trade surveillance partner for some of today’s leading financial institutions and is underlined by the company’s significant year-on-year annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth,” it wrote.