41–50 of 55 posts
Does anyone know what language these systems are typically built with? Or have examples of their implementation?
This quote makes me question the rest of the article: "Historically, currencies were always priced against US dollars." Foreign exchange precedes the _existence_ of the US Dollar, so wtf.
The article's mostly correct. Some assertions and definitions aren't quite right, as if the author doesn't have direct experience but is instead regurgitating their own research/reading.
For example, they define a "pip" as being equal to a basis point but that's not the case. In fact, the reason they're called "pips" instead of "bips" (market slang for basis points) is because they're not the same thing.[1]
Also, the article kind of glosses over the fact that the wholesale (or interbank) FX market (the article uses the term "Spot Market" which is more commonly used to refer to the subset of the interbank market for spot deals) operates at large scale (e.g. a minimum deal size of $100,000). You can only get the tight spreads (In the same way that the per-unit price for buying several container-loads of cans of beans direct from Heinz will be lower than if you buy a single can from your local retail store, a retail customer looking to exchange $300 can't expect to get the interbank rate.
1: This page - http://www.londonfx.co.uk/trading.html - (written by a friend and former colleague) gives a more accurate description of what a pip is.
> The software at the heart of an exchange that manages the Order Book is called a Matching Engine, and must be very fast and reliable. Does anyone know what language these systems are typically built with? Or have examples of their implementation?
Is private forex trading as lucrative as it seems? People online seem to be making consistent, solid returns on relatively small investments (you can start out with < $100k)
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I transferred some savings last year, because I emigrated. All the normal British banks offered very poor exchange rates. Traditional money exchange sites, which seemed to target people making large foreign purchases (houses etc) or people looking to invest in foreign currency were better, but as soon as I signed up on the website I received calls from their staff, which annoyed me. In any case, the rates were still…
You can also use a plain old brokerage account. My broker charges 0.2% commission, less than half TransferWise's lowest rate, and it's direct access to the interbank market so there's no margin, execution delay, etc. The downside is you need to own the account you send money to, due to AML laws.
I tried to find brokerage accounts, but either the rates were bad, or the minimum amounts too high.
It could be useful next year though, if I buy a house here.
From someone who has absolutely no idea how the markets work and what are the 'mechanics' behind the stock markets, economy etc: what is the good/productive way to learn about such things? The linked article provides some explanation, but I still don't feel that I 'feel'/truly understand the topic. I'd recommend books/videos/articles recommendations.
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I tried to open a Number 26 account. After going through, and passing, their KYC process I found out the account could only be activated through their app. That is despite lack of clarity in their documentation, which I believe clearly suggest activation can be completed online through a browser. Guess what? Their Android app can only be downloaded through Google's Play Store. I'm running CyanogenMod on my phone with…
I also remember that they talked about such an option. To be fair they state in multiple locations that using their app is a prerequisite for having an account (I think I even remember checking such a box during signup). You also can't authorize transfers without their app. This is a deliberate choice on their side.
> The software at the heart of an exchange that manages the Order Book is called a Matching Engine, and must be very fast and reliable. Does anyone know what language these systems are typically built with? Or have examples of their implementation?
Reuters changed over to a more modern platform around 2013, but prior to that for electronic trading they would basically designate a Windows host for you that ran their GUI application plus a server, which you could connect to and would just forward your requests via COM to the UI.
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I live in the UK and have had a Mondo card for about a month and a half. I've been very pleased with them so far, and there is clearly a big opportunity for them to bring some innovation to traditional banking. Any specific questions?
What's your experience been compared to traditional banks? Where do they differ the most? Have you been disappointed by anything yet? Have you tried them outside the UK / withdrawing euros? How's their human support?
There are a few issues. One is a tradeoff which can't really be fixed - all transactions are "online", allowing them to do push notifications and live fraud checks. For some card machines, particularly when using contactless, this can substantially increase the time it takes for the card machine to process the payment.
Most of the issues though seem be caused by their card issuer - rather than interfacing with the card networks directly, they currently go via a company called "GPS" (pretty sure it's http://www.globalprocessing.ae). This seems to add notable latency to some transactions, as well as causing a couple of limitations on how you start using the card. I expect all of these problems will be resolved once they issue cards directly.
I haven't used the card physically outside the UK, but I have done a number of non-GBP transactions online and they all worked fine - with good conversion rates. A number of people on the discourse forum have used it outside the UK and it looks as though they didn't have any problems.
Support is good - generally very quick responses in-app (they use Intercom), and they're very active when it comes to the extended discussion in the discourse forum. A few of the blog posts came about as a result of those discussions.
One cool thing is that almost every single screen of the app allows you to give feedback in various ways - flagging merchant details as incorrect, providing suggestions, and letting them know how urgent upcoming features are.
Having good APIs is pretty important to me also - although I haven't used them yet. The app keeps detailed logs of the internal APIs which I like to regularly dump onto my laptop for reference too!
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I have been using Number26 as my main spending account for a few months now but wouldn't use it as my main account. There are a few things that aren't implemented yet, such as crediting cheques (I still get one or two a year) or non-SEPA transfers (though to be fair it is very expensive at banks compared to e.g. Transferwise so I wouldn't use it either way). The support is overwhelmed at the moment and over Christmas…
Revolut: No fees and perfect interbank rates? Where do they make their money, then?