Horizon targets Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam

By Emmanuel Faure, Head of Sales APAC, Horizon Software

Journalist: Wendy Lisney from Global Investor Group

Electronic trading solutions provider Horizon Software is targeting its growth efforts on Malaysia, Thailand
and Vietnam, its head of sales for the Asia Pacific region has said.
While Hong Kong and Singapore remain a major centre for the Paris-based fintech firm, the less mature
markets in the region’s Southeast are a focus, said Emmanuel Faure, who joined in in January last year
after several years spent in brokerage at Fimat/Newedge HSBC and Jefferies.

“Horizon historically has been very active in Asia,” Faure told Global Investor. “Over 60% of the results of
Horizon in the world are done in Asia Pacific. Over the last few years we’ve done a big push in Southeast
Asia because the markets were developing, and that’s why it’s more visible that we’re pushing forward in
Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.

“These smaller new markets are growing at a very good pace and we see new players from China, Hong
Kong and Korea. As the markets are a little less mature, you have more opportunities in arbitrage.”

According to Faure, Horizon’s development in Vietnam began as a progression from the firm’s strong
presence in Thailand and its work with the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange to support the launch of covered
warrants

“We have currently around five clients doing market making in Vietnam on warrants and ETFs (exchange
traded funds),” Faure said. “It was a logical and natural move to go to Vietnam, the markets are very similar
in terms of activity.”

Due to the pandemic, Horizon is currently expanding through recruitment rather than adding more physical
offices to its locations in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Since Faure took up his post, Horizon has
expanded its APAC workforce by over a third, adding four staff in Thailand and four in Hong Kong,
increasing the team to around 30.

The onboarding of new talent reflects Horizon’s strategy to develop its order management and algorithmic
trading systems as it expands beyond its historical derivatives prop trading solution to tap into the agency
business, which is growing much faster than pure market making, Faure said.

As an example, one of the five market making clients in Vietnam is also an agency business using Horizon’s
OMS system
While Horizon continues to improve its “plug and play” prop trading platform, including a significant
investment in co-location and hosting, OMS and algo trading are a big part of the company’s roadmap for
2021, Faure said.

“We want to be a leading Solution for Agency and for prop trading with algorithmic solutions. We are the only platform which
is built on the requirements of proprietary trading firms and offers the same capabilities to the agency
business, so it’s kind of unique.”

Horizon won the Multi-Asset Trading System of the Year award in the recent FOW International awards.
The firm integrated its algorithmic trading platform with Wolverine Execution Services (WEX) late in 2019,
enabling its clients to connect to the WEX infrastructure to manage orders on US options, futures and cash
equities.

Source: Horizon targets Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam