Last month, iSAM Securities launched Parallax – a new piece of tech that gives brokers a clear, real-time overview of their trading activity and rev share agreements with their LP.
We figured that the technology might already exist but apparently we figured wrong.
That being the case, we decided to talk to iSAM’s Chief Commercial Officer Dennis Weissert and Head of Trading Chris Twort about the product, why it was launched, and what brokers can do with it.
iSAM Securities just launched Parallax – can you talk through what it does in simple terms?
Chris: Parallax is our new risk share platform, and really it came from listening to what clients were telling us about the traditional models in the market. We took that feedback on board and built something around it, with transparency right at the centre.
Essentially, Parallax allows brokers to participate in both the risk and reward of internalised trading activity based on clear, pre-agreed terms. Brokers get access to real-time visibility of performance giving them a clear understanding of how their book is performing and where value is being generated. We haven’t heard about a risk share model with this level of transparency on the market, so we focussed on this niche to give clients what they are really looking for.
When you pair that with our institutional-grade liquidity and pricing, Parallax gives brokers a more data-driven, transparent way to unlock extra value from their flow.
How is this different from Radar, your existing bridge technology? It seems like having an overview of P&L was already part of that system?
Dennis: Radar and Parallax actually serve very different purposes. iSAM Securities’ technology offering consists of two products – Apex and Radar.
Apex is our bridge, connecting brokers trading platforms to liquidity providers, managing order routing, price aggregation, and execution.
Radar on the other hand, is our risk management and analytics platform. It’s platform-agnostic so brokers can plug Radar into their MT4, MT5, cTrader, DXtrade, bridge, or other proprietary platforms to get deeper insight into their book. It really does offer a wealth of data that helps brokers to truly understand their flow, manage their book exposure and identify profit opportunities.
As Chris mentioned, Parallax is our advanced risk share model. Clients of Parallax automatically get access to real-time oversight of performance, but with the addition of Radar, brokers gain unparalleled visibility into analytics tags, giving them a much deeper understanding of flow quality, client behaviour, and book performance. This means that every trade can be contextualised whether by strategy, client type, or risk profile, which allows for more precise decision making and provides a clearer link between P&L outcomes and underlying drivers.
In short, Radar helps brokers understand their risk, and Parallax is our risk share model, and Apex underpins execution by ensuring orders reach the market as quickly and reliably as possible.
The fact you launched the product suggests things can go wrong when it comes to either understanding what’s going on with hedging activity, whether it be P&L of trades, rebates, or something else. What sorts of problems had you seen or experienced as an LP and tech provider that you think this product addresses?
Chris: We have heard genuine feedback from our clients that would suggest there are a lack of risk share models currently on the market that offer the level of transparency they are looking for. Whether that is going into the agreement with unclear terms, undefined pay-out days, or the ability to monitor performance throughout, we have managed to overcome all three in one model.
Aside from this, Parallax gives you access to our institutional-grade liquidity, which uses our unique price construction which combines market data, internal risk positions, and alpha signals to deliver the best price possible. We don’t recycle third party feeds, which essentially allows us to provide quotes that are tighter, more stable, and uncorrelated with other LPs.
This means that Parallax doesn’t just return P&L, it also gives brokers access to higher quality liquidity, tailored to their flow, which can improve execution and book performance.
Looking at your wider set of products, one part of the Radar product looks at markouts and post-trade P&L. How useful is that as a way of managing flow and are there any uses for it beyond identifying fraudulent and abusive activity on the client’s book?
Dennis: Radar’s markouts and post-trade P&L analytics are incredibly useful for flagging sharp trading activity, but no, that is not their only use. They give brokers a deeper understanding of how their flow impacts underlying liquidity providers, which helps to prevent spread widening or liquidity deterioration.
By surfacing analytics on sharp flow, brokers can make more informed risk management decisions such as determining which orders should be routed to different types of internal books or offset to a liquidity provider.
Radar also plays a key role in detecting traders attempting to exploit latency across the technology stack, while simultaneously offering actionable insight into execution quality and flow behaviour. Ultimately, this allows firms to manage risk more effectively and preserve the strength of their liquidity relationships.
From the LP side, a lot of the analytics tools you give to brokers could end up being detrimental to you, given that you are effectively giving brokers better tools to identify flow they don’t want. How do you manage that potential problem with your partners?
Dennis: That is a fair question but, in practice, it isn’t an issue for us. In our view, the success of one side of our business doesn’t come at the expense of the other, although the combination can definitely enhance a user’s experience. It is essential that we continue to evolve in line with our clients’ needs in order to ensure that our solutions remain relevant and useful.
Radar gives brokers the tools they need to understand their flow and manage risk more effectively, regardless of who their LP is – but, of course, a smarter broker with better tools will be more challenging for a less comprehensive LP, so choosing the right one for you is paramount!
Chris: If anything, the sophistication of our technology offering pushes us to constantly improve as an LP. When providing clients with greater transparency into execution quality, flow behaviour and book performance, it raises the standard across the board, which we see as a positive. We don’t see transparency as a threat, we see it as a way of building stronger and more collaborative partnerships with our clients.
Generally the hedging model for brokers is to capture spreads where possible, take risk up to a limit, and then go and hedge when you’ve hit that limit. The tools you give customers mean there are opportunities to engage in more advanced hedging techniques. Is there value in doing that for brokers? The trade off seems to be the potential for slightly higher revenues versus the risk you end up losing money and the time and technical expertise you might need to undertake those sorts of strategies?
Chris: There is definite value for brokers in engaging in more advanced hedging techniques, where managing their b-book effectively could help them to capture additional revenue. However, this can be challenging for a lot of brokers as they often do not have the time, technical expertise or reliable infrastructure in-house.
That’s really where we come in. Our comprehensive product suite takes on a lot of the heavy lifting by underpinning brokers decision-making with advanced analytics, automations, and customisation. The system is designed to make execution and hedging decisions as seamless as possible, while providing transparency and continuity across teams. We essentially give our clients access to institutional-grade techniques and technology in a way that’s accessible, scalable, and reliable.
