Saxo Bank introduced recently new product called SaxoTraderGO. Therefore we had opportunity to interview Christian Hammer, who holds the position of Head of Platforms and Senior Vice President in the company.
What were the reasons to introduce new SaxoTraderGO platform? What is the target of this platform and what are main improvements in comparison with previous one?
SaxoTraderGO platform was designed for maximum usability and performance. Its purpose is to enable customers to efficiently navigate between your desktop computer and operating environments based on mobile technologies. Other changes include ease of navigation and integrated services prior to the transaction, transaction itself and post-transaction.
What is important, SaxoTraderGO platform was developed based on Open API technology, which delivers a variety of uses – one of them is possibility to connect to any external financial institution offering investments in new, innovative context, for example by integrating our platform with its own website and banking applications. API contains all the information concerning the materials, transactions and accounts that use the SaxoTraderGO platform.
On which markets the new platform was launched in the first place and on which markets do you think will benefit most users – and why?
For the first time SaxoTraderGO was launched on May 4th 2015 in France, exclusively for French customers, in a place called TheFamily. It is a French investor start-up that wants to rebuild the French ecosystem. We thought it would be a perfect partner for us because Saxo Bank is more than just a bank – it is a hybrid of bank and technology company start-up.
Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen, co-chairmen and co-founders of Saxo Bank, built this bank as one of the first based on Internet technology. They encountered the Internet very early and they found that it offered a real chance to stand out small business and great way to improve transactions. We consider ourselves true FinTech company with a license to conduct banking activities and that is why we launch SaxoTraderGO, our platform for third-generation and our start-up environment gave it authenticity. I believe that such a strategy was both original and appropriate. May 27 the platform was launched all over Europe – we hope that soon the new platform will benefit traders in all markets.
Before its introduction, we conducted a survey among nearly 3 000 retail investors in order to take into account the real needs of traders. SaxoTraderGO is a neutral solution for all devices to allow smooth movement between mobile devices and desktop computer. You could say that this is one of the most intuitive and at the same time efficient user interfaces in the field of investment services.
At the end of the year our platform will be made available also to our White Label partners, or to other banks and brokers benefiting from Saxo Bank’s technology to improve its own transaction and investment offer.
In the past ten years, social networks have completely changed our lives. Is Saxo Bank uses this trend to introduce new products and services – and how?
The increasing impact of social media was one of the main reasons for introducing last year new investment community platform – TradingFloor.com. We are aware that social investing has become commonplace and – to quote the words of our co-chairman and co-founder Lars Seier Christensen – “we want to unleash the power of investors around the world based on the peer-to-peer relationships, enabling them to contact online with experienced, like-minded investors who have had enough advice of consultants from traditional banks. “
Since the launch of the portal last year, TradingFloor.com quickly gained popularity and is now seen – in line with our assumptions – as a landmark project. TradingFloor.com main advantage is that it allows observing how the best traders are progressing with their investments in any asset class, and use of their knowledge.
SaxoTraderGO is integrated with Tradingfloor.com, providing our customers efficient movement between the platform and the investment community portal and information.
What – except access to educational materials – should be offered to such customers to induce them to invest?
All investors need education in order to better understand the specific products or expand their knowledge on a wide range of financial instruments, and thanks to that – to diversify and strengthen their portfolio. Modern investment platform, such as SaxoTraderGO, shows to individual investors, how the same underlying instrument can be traded in different ways.
