The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
Dukascopy Bank SA is a Swiss bank and securities dealer headquartered in Geneva, offering online trading in forex, CFDs on stocks, metals, commodities and indices, plus cryptocurrency trading and custody, through its proprietary SWFX Swiss FX Marketplace, an ECN that aggregates liquidity from over 20 banks. Clients trade through Dukascopy's own JForex platform, MetaTrader 4 and 5, or a FIX 4.4 API, and the bank pairs this with retail banking services such as multi-currency current accounts, e-banking, and Visa and Mastercard cards. Within the CFD and forex broker category, Dukascopy is distinguished by holding an actual Swiss banking license rather than operating purely as a brokerage, which lets it combine trade execution with deposit-taking and payment services under FINMA supervision. It also stands out for giving away extensive free historical tick and OHLC data exports, widely used by quants and algorithmic developers for backtesting, and for building out a crypto business line, including FINMA authorization for fiduciary cryptocurrency custody and exchange services and its own token, Dukascoin, launched in 2019. The company was founded on November 2, 2004 in Geneva by Andre Duka and Veronika Duka, Swiss nationals who retain roughly 99 percent ownership; the underlying research project traces to 1998, when Andre Duka, a physicist formerly at CERN, began applying complex-systems modelling to trading technology. Dukascopy launched SWFX in 2006 and obtained full Swiss banking authorization from FINMA in 2010. The group now operates through Dukascopy Bank SA in Switzerland, EU-licensed Dukascopy Europe IBS AS in Riga, Latvia, and Type-1 licensed Dukascopy Japan K.K. in Tokyo (acquired 2013), with additional offices in Hong Kong; the group employs over 300 staff and states a trading community of more than 130,000 members. It holds Qualified Derivatives Dealer status with the US IRS and has been a Swiss Bankers Association member since 2012. In 2014, a Swiss criminal case found three investment managers connected to the firm guilty of churning client accounts; Dukascopy itself was not criminally charged but was ordered to disgorge 775,000 Swiss francs in unlawful profits from that matter.
