“Canary Wharf, London (PRWEB) December 6, 2009 — Saxo Bank, the specialist in online trading and investment, has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire E*TRADE International’s local Nordic online trading business and online bank from E*TRADE Nordic AB, an indirect subsidiary of US-based financial services company E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corporation. The Nordic business includes client accounts in Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, and Norway.”
It seems that Saxo Bank is gradually switching its focus to more institutional type of clientèle and is less focusing on the retail Forex market. Saxo Bank is pretty large in Northern Europe in terms of Assets Under Management (AUM) and is more a bank, or a financial advisory firm, than a classic forex broker. I always thought that Saxo is much better at catering to the institutional crowd than the retail one and suggested that it disposes of its retail forex unit. Perhaps this step is another one in that direction.
“This strategic move continues Saxo Bank’s steady expansion over the last few months and further cements Saxo Bank’s position in the Scandinavian marketplace.
The acquisition of one of Scandinavia’s established online bank and brokerages is a further step by Saxo Bank towards offering more saving and investment products to investors. Following this latest acquisition, Saxo Bank will be able to offer pension products as well as stock and margin accounts, bond offerings and, in the future, a Funds Supermarket. Moreover, Saxo Bank’s AUM will increase by more than DKK 5.0bn and the acquisition adds an additional 50,000 active accounts.
In a joint statement, Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen, Co-CEOs and co-founders of Saxo Bank, said: “This acquisition supports our long term expansion strategy and broadens our product offering on the SaxoTrader platform. In addition, the expanded client base will enable us to further improve our services to both existing and new clients through improved efficiency and scale.”
Read the rest here.
