might be just the guy to talk to about including bitcoin in bank trading platforms, that is the business they are in. And have done real well I've been watching them.
http://www.cityam.com/markets-and-investments/libertarian-innovator-burning-see-his-company-grow-even-furtherMany traders don’t realise how much they rely on the Danish investment bank, which provides white label services to other financial institutions, customising trading platforms based on their underlying technology."
For Fournais and Christensen, it was a chance they had to take. Their entrepreneurial drive has always been matched by their libertarian beliefs. A copy of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged sits proudly on display in the office where we talk. The book is so important to Saxo Bank’s founders that they arranged a Danish translation and gave copies out to their employees. They are outside Denmark’s intellectual mainstream: it is known for social democratic politics. But they were able to see opportunities that conventional opinion missed. They achieved positive cash flow within just two months."
We are always competing on product, price and service,” says Fournais. “We saw an opportunity in Denmark. It was not optimal conditions but we had a low cost base and we provided a service that was closer to clients.” Saxo Bank’s drive to create greater transparency soon came into its own with the arrival of the web: “We hadn’t heard of the internet when we started. But we saw E-Trade and others in the United States and in 1995 we began discussing how to use it.” This year, Saxo Bank launched a new online equity platform and in June they won the title of the world’s best white label solution provider. They have 200 IT staff in their Copenhagen office, and more in India and the Ukraine."
Still, Fournais is clear where his biggest problem lies, and it isn’t the challenge of managing giant IT projects. “Saxo Bank’s biggest challenge is the regulatory environment. Regulation is important, but over-regulation is not creating a safer or more sound system. Rule changes are very resource intensive for us.”
Fournais is less optimistic about the power of politicians to stop running up unsustainable deficits. “A private person couldn’t keep buying cars with money they don’t have. At least in the UK you are trying to change. In Denmark we are paralysed. Politicians wait for the platform to be burning, so there could still be a more drastic development.”
