“We could have been wasting 2 hours a day doing reconciliation rather than just running it through Aurum.”

When it comes to margin trading, accuracy is paramount. After all, the clue is in the name – fine margins are involved. However, the importance of these fine margins only increases when the values they are dealing with grow greater.  

This is the situation that RKX Financial (formerly DOO Clearing) wished to position themselves in as a liquidity provider for Forex and CFDs. With other entities of the RKX Group already operating around the world, they had built a strong reputation for providing both institutional and bespoke levels of liquidity access and clearing services. Yet to operate in the UK, they had to meet the regulations of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). 

The solution 

Before RKX Financial could begin trading, they rightly had to show to the FCA that they were compliant with CASS regulations. Whilst on paper, some of these could be achieved manually, that would not be a sustainable contemporary solution, nor the appropriate one that the FCA seeks. 

By using technologies specifically designed to overcome the regulatory challenges faced by firms we can add to the public value we deliver as a regulator.‍

The FCA, Using technology to achieve smarter regulatory reporting, Feb 2018 

In fact, as overseers of best practice and regulation, the FCA prefers liquidity providers, plus other types of firms, to conduct their reconciliation efficiently, accurately, and regularly through automation, making a strong case for tools such as Aurum. Why? Because ... 

• Automation guarantees accuracy by eliminating the risk of human error 
• Reconciling within one automated platform produces complete audit trails 
• Saving time on reconciliation leaves firms with resources to focus on offering customers better services and value 

However, whilst most automated reconciliation software can offer these outcomes as standard, not all of them are adaptable to specific business requirements. For RKX Financial this was particularly important.  

We explored other options; however, Aurum met the special area of matching our requirements and being cost-effective. In contrast, we didn’t want to pay lots for something that we were only going to use 10% of.

Nadine Howard

CEO and Director at RKX Financial

 As such, having discovered online our expertise as CASS compliance specialists and then witnessed the full flexibility of our product in a bespoke proof-of-concept demo, RKX Financial turned to Aurum. 

The results 

With Aurum in place, RKX Financial gained the go-ahead from the FCA to begin operating. However, that was only the first of many benefits to come.  

For example, as RKX Financial is made up of a small team, any opportunity to save time is of utmost importance. Fortunately, Aurum operates at a rapid pace resulting in their entire end-to-end reconciliation process only taking 10 minutes. Without Aurum, they estimate that it could take up to 2 hours. As a result, Aurum delivers emphatic timesaving to the RKX Financial team, allowing them to focus on many other important tasks that they must juggle. 

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Being a small team, we all wear many hats to keep the business running smoothly. Without Aurum, reconciliation would eat into our time and negatively affect our productivity.

Nadine Howard

CEO and Director at RKX Financial

 An imperative task that Aurum’s reconciliation directly impacts is that of balancing their operational accounts against those which are held in their client money trading accounts. This requires additional input from trading platforms, meaning that a three-way reconciliation must take place. Nevertheless, despite this sounding complex, Aurum removes all difficulties from the process through its automation. 

Moreover, upon completing this three-way reconciliation, Aurum generates reports for Nadine and her peers, detailing what it has reconciled. This allows for a systematic approval process which is recorded within Aurum to assist with audits. Following this process, Nadine is simply left to ensure that their operational accounts reflect the profits and losses experienced elsewhere due to trades each day. 

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We could have been wasting 2 hours a day doing reconciliation rather than just running it through Aurum.

Nadine Howard

CEO and Director at RKX Financial

It should also be noted that Aurum doesn’t create reports simply for internal purposes at RKX Financial. For instance, daily automatic production by Aurum of their Reconciliation Statement presents RKX Financial with reports full of integrity detailing the client money they hold, their highest and lowest values held per month, and much more. Details such as these are integral for audits and can be easily submitted, helping RKX Financial continually comply with CASS regulations. 

Ultimately, RKX Financial now possesses a bespoke system tailored to their needs thanks to their partnership with Aurum Solutions. However, the development of such an efficient system only came about thanks to James Fenton, Solution Build Consultant at Aurum Solutions. As their project manager, James took the time to truly understand RKX Financial’s specific needs and adapted Aurum’s standard CASS solutions accordingly. 

This was a challenging project due to the fact DOO Clearing had not gone live – when we started working with them, all we had was dummy data. However, drawing on expertise from other projects and with the help of the team at DOO Clearing, we designed a quick, seamless, and compliant process that simplified and shortened a task that could have taken hours out of their day.

James Fenton

Solutions Build Consultant at Aurum Solutions 

Even on the rare occasions that issues have arisen, RKX Financial has been left equally impressed with the support they receive. Due to the high quality of our support being another core reason why RKX Financial chose Aurum as their reconciliation platform; it is something that we are proud to deliver. 

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The support we have as soon as we raise a query has been brilliant. Whatever it might be, it’s dealt with nearly instantly.

Nadine Howard

CEO and Director at RKX Financial

Overall, from day one Aurum met RKX Financial’s requirement of a “robust system that can’t be tampered with”, securing them their licence to operate but then also boosting their productivity. With RKX Financial facilitating making assets work harder for people, and our reconciliation reducing their workload, we think that together we make a good team.