Saxo Bank Boosts Transaction Revenue by Millions

CASE STUDY
ASHEET
Saxo Bank Boosts Transaction Revenue by Millions of Dollars
per Day in China by Teaming with CDNetworks
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“CDNetworks was the only solution to meet our needs. They have their
own infrastructure in China, provide dynamic acceleration technology,
and are experts in both Chinese regulations and the Internet in China.”
- Ashley Latham, SVP Trading Products
At a Glance
COMPANY: Saxo Bank
FOUNDED: 1992
HEADQUARTERS: Copenhagen, Denmark
INDUSTRY: Finance & Banking
WEBSITE: www.saxobank.com
SERVICES: Stock, Bonds, &Foreign Exchange
Trading
CDNetworks SERVICES:
Web Performance Suite
Key Results
Recovered millions per day in Chinabased transactions
Dramatically improved customer
experience across mainland China
Confidently able to sell white-label
solution worldwide for increased
revenues
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Saxo Bank is a leading international investment bank that specializes in online global
trading and investment. In addition to direct services provided to consumers and
businesses, Saxo Bank developed a white-label solution called SaxoTrader that is used
by many global financial institutions.
The multi award-winning SaxoTrader enables investors to trade Forex, CFDs, ETFs,
Stocks, Futures and FX Forwards and Options from one, fully integrated online
platform. SaxoTrader offers a wealth of market information and all of the state-of-theart technical tools and features needed to trade successfully.
The SaxoTrader platform comes in several forms – a Web-based application, a mobile
application for Apple iOS and Google Android, and a desktop application for Microsoft
Windows.
Saxo Bank’s executive team views the expansion of SaxoTrader into emerging markets
as critical to the bank’s long-term strategic growth. “Our plan called for entry into China
first,” said Latham. “From there, we see the platform grabbing hold throughout APAC.”
The Challenge
As demand from investors and institutions within China to access the SaxoTrader
platform grew significantly so did the need for accelerating the performance of the
application in China. At issue was the latency caused by the distance between the
Denmark-based datacenter and China. In addition, China’s vast geography and complex
Internet peering caused even slower performance.
Fast transaction times are critical to stock, bond, and foreign exchange trading. As little
as one second can result in lost revenue from incomplete or incorrect trades based on
out-of-date market information. Saxo Bank also wanted to ensure the same customer
experience in China that the SaxoTrader platform is known for around the world.
Saxo Bank quickly realized that doing business in China needed a different approach.
Saxo Bank Headquarters in Denmark
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The Solution: Delivering Directly From China
Initially, Saxo Bank sought to host and serve SaxoTrader from a datacenter located
within mainland China. However, after careful research, they concluded that a single
datacenter would not meet their performance goals and therefore needed to look for
other solutions.
The IT team from Saxo looked at several vendors, however, explained Latham, “They
lacked the local presence we knew we needed in China.”
Saxo Bank’s IT team engaged CDNetworks to accelerate SaxoTrader in China initially,
eventually branching out to other emerging markets. The combination of CDNetworks’
Web Performance Suite and its in-China personnel and infrastructure met Saxo’s needs.
CDNetworks is able to facilitate financial transactions for SaxoTrader with 25 local POPs
(Points of Presence) throughout mainland China. CDNetworks is the only global CDN
that can effectively accelerate web transactions including financial and eCommerce in
China.
Saxo Bank performed extensive testing of the SaxoTrader Web- and Client-based
application running on CDNetworks’ cloud-based infrastructure. Testing took place
across multiple regions of China. “As a cloud-based service, the CDNetworks solution
performed extremely fast without the need for costly datacenter build-out,” said
Latham. “It also enables us to pursue other world regions in a fast and flexible manner.”
Team Saxo Bank Cycling
The Result
In less than two weeks the Saxo Bank team, together with CDNetworks, was able to
launch SaxoTrader in China. The company realized revenue gains of millions per day
because latency-induced broken trades were effectively eliminated.
Once Saxo Bank’s IT team gained complete comfort with CDNetworks, they expanded
the scope of their dynamic application delivery of the cloud-based infrastructure.
“CDNetworks has helped us achieve our goal of successfully entering emerging markets
with our flagship platform applications,” continued Latham. “I anticipate moving more
of our application portfolio onto CDNetworks and expanding globally faster than
originally anticipated.”
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CDNetworks
Global Offices
About Saxo Bank
US
441 W. Trimble Road
San Jose, CA 95131
+1 408 228 3700
EMEA
Juxon House
100 St Paul’s Churchyard
London, EC4M 8BU
+44 203 514 7501
Korea
Saxo Bank is a leading online trading and investment specialist. A fully licensed and
regulated European bank, Saxo Bank enables private investors and institutional clients
to trade FX, CFDs, ETFs, Stocks, Futures, Options and other derivatives via three
specialized and fully integrated trading platforms; the browser-based SaxoWebTrader,
the downloadable SaxoTrader and the SaxoMobileTrader application available in over
20 languages. Saxo Bank also offers professional portfolio and fund management
through Saxo Asset Management who accommodates high-net worth private clients and
institutional investors and provides banking services and advice to retail clients through
Saxo Privatbank. The Saxo Bank Group is headquartered in Copenhagen with offices
throughout Europe, Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Australia.
Handong Bldg. 2F, 828-7
Yeoksam-Dong, Gangnam-Gu
135-935 Seoul
+82 2 3441 0400
Japan
Nittochi Nishi-shinjuku Building
8th Floor, 6-10-1, Nishishinjuku,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0023
+81 3 5909 3369
China
Room No.A-1502,
Keijidalou, 900 Yi shan Road, Shanghai
+ 021-54234802
[email protected]
www.cdnetworks.com
©CDNetworks.
All rights reserved.
Features and specifications
subject to change without
notice.
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About CDNetworks
CDNetworks enables mission critical e-business in the world’s most challenging
markets. CDNetworks’ unique position as the only multinational CDN with expertise
and infrastructure in China, and other emerging markets, makes us a trusted
technology and business advisor to more than 1,200 companies across the highlycompetitive industries of software, travel, eCommerce, high tech, manufacturing,
media, and gaming. Reliably delivering over-the-top performance anywhere in the
world, CDNetworks helps businesses get closer to their end users without the
limitations of hardware and private networks. Founded in 2000, CDNetworks has
offices in the U.S., Korea, China, Japan, the UK, and France. For more information,
please visit: http://www.cdnetworks.com.