Peter Klein

Head of Saxo Bank, London

As online FX trading specialist Saxo Bank teams up with CitiGroup to launch CitiFX Pro, a new hybrid form of online foreign exchange trading platform, FX&MM speaks to Saxo’s Peter Klein – one of the architects behind the initiative.

The two global leaders in their own fields of experience, expertise and formidable capabilities, Citi and Saxo, are embarked on a collaboration to provide FX trading for sophisticated individuals and smaller institutional traders alike. The new offering, called CitiFX Pro, enables the user full advantage of the world’s largest financial market with access to the same level of data and trading technology as institutional traders.

Subject to regulatory and other approvals, CitiFX Pro is expected to begin operating shortly in the US market prior to a wider roll-out in selected countries around the globe during 2008. By joining forces with Saxo Bank, Citi, in addition to best in class liquidity and service, will be able to provide its clients with a user-friendly online trading platform with a tried and tested track record. A pioneer in the online investment trading market, over the last decade Saxo Bank has accumulated valuable knowledge and expertise in supporting the online trading needs of a global client base, establishing a global reputation for award-winning technology and outstanding service capabilities to support its white label partnership concept.

In his role as Head of Saxo Bank’s London operation, Peter Klein is responsible for leading, positioning and expanding Saxo's presence in the UK market. A longtime executive in the e-FX industry, Peter joined the rapidly expanding Copenhagen-based company around two years ago, since when he took a pivotal role in working with Saxo’s co-founders, Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen, in opening the London office on Canary Wharf in 2006. I began by asking Peter how things were going on that front.

“Extremely well, thank you Drew. We now have over one-hundred highly motivated and qualified staff in London, with more expansion on the way. After a year, I have to say more and more people are becoming aware of the name Saxo Bank. And of course, with the latest partnership we are gaining even greater exposure.”

Considering the size of CitiGroup, is this new offering primarily their innovation?

“I would prefer to characterise it as a close collaboration between the two organizations. Essentially, it’s a very integrated white-label partnership. It’s certainly a new approach for us in that it’s a much more integrated offering from what we would normally do with our hundred-plus or more white-label customers. It’s a model where we support the value chain as well on behalf of Citi.”

It would appear this is pushing the concept of white-labeling to a new level.

“Absolutely. And also, the other aspect of this partnership from our others is this is a co-branded effort. Obviously a bank like Citi have gone through a huge selection process, so it’s great to have them partnering with us, also given the fact that we just won the FX Week award. Not just our technology, but also our operational capabilities. For most part, the easier bit is the front-end system; the harder part is supporting the operation.”

I see this new offering has all the trading capabilities and features of the original award-winning Saxo Trader platforms. Saxo Trader 2 is now of course a very well-positioned product – very user-friendly and indeed, unmistakably Saxo in look and feel. So is the CitiFX Pro new technology as such?

“Not exactly. The way this differs is more to do with look and feel. We firmly believe the Saxo Trader to be the best platform in the market, so what we’ve done with CitiFX Pro is branded it especially so as to differentiate with the Saxo Trader offering, but it’s not a significant difference from it. It’s the combination of the two institutions that marks it out, in terms of the major chunk of liquidity is coming from Citi, the depth of which is extremely significant, as is the pricing and competitiveness, all being important for the target market, which I would say is a higher end offering.”

Has the close proximity to Citi – geographically speaking, now that you’ve opened your new London office – been instrumental in helping secure this partnership?

“Definitely, yes. Also, from our perspective, we found their approach from the very beginning to be a great fit with Saxo. Citi wasn’t the first bank to look into this space, but they were very clear as to what type of capabilities they were looking for. And equally importantly, there was a direct ownership with one particular City Bank individual who owned this process from the very beginning, almost as a full-time role, giving it a tremendous amount of focus. So from the outset, we were knew they were extremely serious.”

And you were involved right from the very beginning, Peter?

“Yes, I spearheaded the team for Saxo. I’ve been part of the negotiations from the very early days; but we’re still in the process of going live, so there’s still a lot of work ahead of us. This is not meant to be a purely US-focused initiative – it’s a globally-focused one, so there’s much to be done in what amounts to a very ambitious plan of rolling this out to a list of selected key countries throughout 2008.”

Going forward then, Peter, will you be as involved in this next stage as you have been thus far?

“Obviously, from the strategic perspective, I’ll be involved closely with Saxo’s senior management team. If I may say, both Lars and Kim have been very involved in this deal from the very beginning.”

Are there any plans to extend this innovation to further collaborations?

“Not that I can talk about. Of course, we’re always looking to grow our partnership business; there’s no doubt it’s the bulk of our business. As I mentioned just now, we have one-hundred-plus partners. But it’s also very key for us to choose the right partners. We’re not taking on board partners simply for the sake of adding numbers – we need to ensure the partnership is mutually beneficial – and certainly in terms of the larger institutions, we are talking to a broad area of the marketplace. It’s very exciting, and we’re looking to our continued close working relationship with Citi in making this a huge success for all concerned.”