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OANDA Global Corporation

Company type	Private
Industry	Financial services Investing online Forex trading
Founded	1996 (1996)
Founder	Dr Michael Stumm, Dr Richard Olsen
Headquarters	Toronto. Canada
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Gavin Bambury, CEO
Products	Electronic trading platform
Number of employees	600
Website	www.oanda.com

OANDA Global Corporation is a forex and CFD (contract for difference) broker that provides CFDs on forex, stock indices, commodities, Bitcoin and bonds in a number of countries globally. In the UK OANDA also offers spread betting. OANDA is also known for providing currency information services around the world. It is a privately held company.

History

Founding and early years (1996–2000)

OANDA was co-founded in 1996 by Dr Michael Stumm, a professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, and Dr Richard Olsen of The Olsen Ltd, an econometric research and development firm based in the US. In the same year, the company was incorporated in the state of Delaware.

In 1997, OANDA became the first company to share exchange rate information on the Internet, free of charge.

In 1998, several tax authorities and audit firms around the world began subscribing to OANDA’s corporate solution, OANDA Rates.

In 1999, OANDA launched one of the first Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) services in the world, developed in conjunction with NOKIA. The company also released their latest currency converter for AOL.

In 2000, the company started offering FX conversion, localization, decision support, and forecasting services for corporate clients, surviving the Y2K bug, also called Year 2000 bug or Millennium Bug.

Developing own technology (2001–2010)

In 2001, OANDA launched a trading platform that helped pioneer the development of Internet-based currency trading around the world, allowing forex investors to trade the markets starting with just US$1.

In 2003, the company developed an API for the fxTrade platform, enabling clients to automate their trading and hedging strategies.

In 2004, OANDA became the first broker to introduce fractional pips quoted to the fifth decimal place due to creating greater pricing flexibility and further reducing their spreads.

In 2005, the company published The Forex Trader’s Bill of Rights, defining several key principles to make forex trading more transparent, efficient, and fair.

In 2006, to provide traders with in-depth insights into key events that could impact the markets, the first version of MarketPulse was introduced. Later in the same year, several banks began white-labelling OANDA’s trading engine to support their retail clients.

In 2007, OANDA received $100 million investment from venture capitalists and decided to expand into the Asia-Pacific region for the first time, establishing an office in Singapore.

2010 was the year when the first version of the fxTrade mobile app for IOS and Android was launched. That same year, the company also acquired a majority stake in Japanese broker, MyGaika.

Global expansion (2011–2021)

2011 was a significant year in terms of expansion for OANDA as the company opened a London office to serve as its European headquarters. Meanwhile, the partnership with MyGaika became OANDA Japan.

In 2012, several additional CFDs were added to OANDA’s portfolio, enabling clients in certain markets to trade additional commodities, precious metals, indices, and bonds.

In 2013, the firm upgraded the fxTrade mobile app with customisable charts, overlays, indicators, and price alerts. OANDA also announced a partnership with Autochartist and began offering automated technical analysis.

In 2014, OANDA expanded into Australia and opened an office in Sydney. In the same year, the company offered free developer access to fxTrade via a Rest API.

In 2015, the company became the largest foreign FX broker in Japan and also sided with clients of theirs during the Swiss National Bank crisis.

In 2016, a new state-of-the-art platform called V20 was launched as the result of earlier major investment in achieving institutional-grade execution.

In 2017, OANDA grew to become one of the biggest brokers operating in the US. The same year, the company decided to move part of its mission-critical IT equipment to Equinix’s new SG3 facility in Singapore to enhance trading experience for their customers in Asia. This strategic move extended a global partnership with Equinix, a leading global interconnection and data center provider.

Also in 2017, OANDA launched a new education portal on its website to educate their clients, both novice and advanced traders.

In 2018, OANDA was acquired by CVC Capital Partners, a leading private equity firm that currently manages over $70 billion in assets worldwide. In the same year, OANDA was named an example of a trusted source of currency rates by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

In 2019 industry stalwart Gavin Bambury joined OANDA as the firm’s Chief Executive Officer. Also in the same year, OANDA partnered with AdvantageGo, a commercial insurance software provider, to provide real-time foreign exchange rate data for more than 200 currencies to help insurers and reinsurers assess policy risk more accurately and efficiently.

In 2020, OANDA acquired leading Polish multi-asset class broker Dom Maklerski TMS Brokers, establishing a base to grow across the Baltics and Eastern Europe. OANDA also set up an office in Malta, with the aim to service new customers in the EU.

In 2021, OANDA tied up with globally recognized social trading platform TradingView, used by over 15 million traders and investors worldwide. TradingView is powered by real-time data and market-leading analysis software. OANDA account holders can trade directly from TradingView.com charts using their OANDA account.

Awards and recognitions

In 2008, OANDA was shortlisted for Euromoney’s 2008 Award for Excellence for Best Global Foreign Exchange House. The same year, Silicon Alley Insider ranked the firm among the world's top 10 most valuable private digital start-ups alongside Facebook, Wikipedia, and Mozilla.

In 2009, the firm won Treasury Today's Adam Smith Award in "The One to Watch" category and was named Best Trading Platform by World Finance. [26]

In 2012, WIRED magazine added OANDA to the list of 10 Non-California Tech Companies You Wished You Worked For.

In 2014, the firm was honoured with the Investment Trends Highest Overall Customer Satisfaction awards in the US, the UK, Singapore and Australia.

In 2016, OANDA was named the world’s Best Retail FX Platform at FXWeek’s prestigious eFX awards.

In 2017, the company was recognized as Singapore’s No. 1 FX Broker for the fourth year in a row by the Investment Trends 2017 Singapore CFD & FX Report.

In 2018, OANDA was voted Highest Overall Satisfaction, Value for Money, Platform Features, Mobile Platform/App, Education Materials/Programs and Customer Service by the Investment Trends US Foreign Exchange Report. In the same year, the company also won the Best Retail FX Platform award from FX Week / eFX.

In 2019, OANDA was awarded Overall User Satisfaction by the Investment Trends US FX Report 2019.

In 2020, OANDA was voted Most Popular Broker and Best Forex and CFD Broker 2020 by the TradingView Broker Awards and Highest Mobile App Satisfaction and Third-Party Integrations by the Investment Trends US FX Report 2020.

Operations

Products

Trading

OANDA offers clients from around the world the possibility to trade a broad range of financial products with Forex in the US and Japan as well as Forex and CFDs (contracts for difference) in Canada, the UK, EMEA, APAC, and Australia. In the UK, clients have access to spread betting. Clients can trade using OANDA’s proprietary fxTrade platform, MetaTrader or the TradingView social trading platform.

Currency data & analytics

The company provides foreign exchange data via their exchange rates API and historical currency converter. The FX API delivers data automatically on 200+ currencies with access to 25 central bank exchange rates including real-time rates, forward rates, tick-level data, average data and forex order book. OANDA’s historical currency converter lists 25 years of historical exchange rates across 38,000 currency pairs.

Corporate FX payments

In early 2021, OANDA started cooperation with Shift connect and Currencycloud, a leading provider of B2B embedded cross-border solutions, to offer a new international money transfer service called OANDA FX Payments to companies in North America. The solution enables corporate clients to make cross-border payments in 35 currencies.

Individual FX payments

With cooperation with Wise, OANDA individual clients can send money abroad for less costs. Clients can get exchange rates for a lower upfront fee than banks and traditional providers.

Global offices

OANDA has 9 offices across 3 continents: Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, London, Frankfurt, Krakow, Malta, New York and Toronto.

Currently, OANDA employs around 600 employees worldwide.

Marketing

In 2013, OANDA was one of the supporting firms, together with Bloomberg, 10gen, Betterment, Caplin, and Dwolla, participating at the New York fintech Hackathon, where developers and designers gathered to develop and present new ideas and software programs to venture capitalists.

In 2021, a new Affiliates Program was introduced by OANDA.