When Deutsche Börse-owned 360T partnered with Quantitative Brokers (QB) in February 2025, the partnership combined the latter’s suite of independent execution algos with the FX platform’s large and diverse client base.
The move added QB’s independently created algos to more than 20 top-tier bank and non-bank offerings, allowing 360T’s buy-side client base to deploy more than 100 strategies across the platform’s multiple execution channels. The extensive scale and choice have earned 360T the title of the world’s best solution for FX algo access in this year’s awards.
Among 360T’s channels are its disclosed multibank platform, its execution management system (EMS) and its electronic communications network (ECN) 360TGTX, while maintaining a full audit trail of all trading activity. This allowed more than 2,900 buy-side clients in over 75 countries to access algos via the platform.
“We think that adding access to independent FX algos, and analytics on the performance of them, alongside bank-hosted ones is an important innovation for buy-side firms seeking to achieve best execution, similar to how the introduction of third-party transaction cost analysis (TCA) tools were,” says Matt O’Hara, CEO of 360T Americas.
Independent algo providers have flourished in other asset classes, in part because they do not have a principal trading or market making business and therefore there can be no perceived conflicts of interest about how or where their algos are deployed.
Providing high-quality, localised customer support remains a top priority for 360T
Matt O’Hara
“Accessing bank or independent algos via 360T benefits buy-side firms by enabling them to deploy these algos across curated pools of liquidity where pricing from multiple counterparties is put into competition to ensure best execution,” says O’Hara.
The platform supports access to all of the most commonly used execution strategies, including TWAP/VWAP, iceberg, aggressive, fixing, liquidity seeking, passive and limit algos, as well as customised and tailored ones. Top-tier analytics tools support clients to achieve best execution after 360T’s partnered with all of the significant third-party TCA providers, while its own analytics platform is also available for clients to allow them to conduct benchmarking and execution analysis.
Algos plug into the platform’s EMS as well, meaning clients can net down their trades before execution and without affecting allocations. Users can also create pre-defined algo templates that minimise user interaction and time to market when executing, so that algo orders can be sent to market in one click.
In it for the long haul
In the first half of 2025, algo trading volumes rose more than 54% year-on-year, outpacing the 16% increase in average daily volumes (ADV) on the entire platform, which hit ADV of $194 billion so far this year.
These are impressive numbers for such a well-established company. Founded in 2000, the Frankfurt-based company, part of Deutsche Börse since 2015, was one of the last start-ups to come out of the internet-driven tech boom at the turn of the millennium, which abruptly came to an end with the bursting of the dotcom bubble.
Germany’s export-oriented economy relies on its robust corporate sector for growth, with business zigzagging across payment corridors. This gave 360T strong foundations and by the time Deutsche Börse bought the business in a €725 million deal, 360T was well on its way to becoming a growing FX shop with a broad offering and client base.
Today the platform’s growth is driven by diverse client segments, including institutional clients and asset managers, with corporates contributing 33% of all FX volumes. The diversity of client types and flows plays an important part in the platform’s growth and allows the algo business to flourish while 260 liquidity providers compete for business.
Having been in the business for 25 years, 360T knows the value of long-term relationships, placing a premium on building them rather than just closing transactions. In its latest annual client survey, in which nearly 1,000 users globally provided feedback, overall customer support was rated as 8/10 or higher by 86.1% of respondents.
“Providing high-quality, localised customer support remains a top priority for 360T, and so we are very proud of this feedback from our clients,” says O’Hara.
