Richard Olsen and Michael Stumm: FX markets for the masses

摘要

Oanda's FXTrade trading platform is more than just a business, and has been from the day Richard Olsen and Michael Stumm launched it in 2001. "For Michael, it was a chance to prove that all the technical innovations he teaches are real and doable, and that you can build a trading platform of institutional quality on a retail budget," Olsen says. Stumm says: "For Richard, it's about saving the world." And that salvation comes in the form of markets that are not only accessible to all, but that treat all users the same regardless of account size, and that accurately reflect the underlying reality they are supposed to represent. The two men grew up in Switzerland, and met in high school there. Stumm went on to become a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto, while Olsen became an attorney, economist and trader. They teamed up in the late 1990s to launch Oanda as an online trading tool and quote provider, later adding the trading engine, FXTrade.