By Abdelaziz Fathi
FX industry veteran Simon Wilson-Taylor is joining a Fintech incubator and innovation lab focused on the capital markets.
The initiative is called FastFin and employs capital markets specialists, technologists, and designers who bring” game-changing ideas to life in weeks, not months and years.”
FastFin was founded by Richard Leader and Emin Tatosian a decade ago. They developed the concept of “Innovation Kickstarters,” aiming to assist business leaders in swiftly materializing their ideas without causing disruption to their in-house development teams.
FastFin is said to have designed and developed over 30 digital financial products for some of the largest financial institutions in the world and incubated several “industry defining FinTechs.”
“Putting my decades of experience starting and running entrepreneurial institutional fintech businesses to the best possible use. Helping Banks, brokers, asset managers, exchanges and vendors to get stuff done! We help business leaders to bring their ideas to life, honing their thoughts and then building working prototypes in as little as 4 weeks at a fixed fee. Our clients best internal resources are always busy. FastFin is their secret weapon for quick wins,” Simon Wilson-Taylor wrote in his Linkedin profile.
From 2015, Simon was Head of EBS Institutional, having joined the company after EBS BrokerTec acquired the firm he founded, Molten Markets, which was part of the deal. He parted ways with CME-owned trading platform in 2020, ending a five year tensure where he developed FX products and services at the US futures exchange.
Wilson-Taylor also served as CEO of Molten Markets, a specialist in foreign exchange trading technology for funds and other investment managers for over 3 years. After that, he joined EBS BrokerTec in New York as head of EBS Institutional FX, where he was initially contracted to stay for 2 years. However, the contract was extended, and he continued to lead the business for almost 5 years as they established EBSI as an FX EMS and real-time TCA platform for asset managers.
During his stint, he led the business serving the needs of asset managers globally and helped build on its traditional stronghold in the interbank foreign exchange market. EBS is one of the dominant players in the interbank trade, which forms a large chunk of the wholesale Forex market.
Wilson-Taylor’s career encompasses different senior roles as he worked in the financial markets for nearly 40 years. This includes leadership positions at State Street, HSBC, Record Currency Management and UBS.
In 2020, Simon led the formation of a fintech startup called FICCit Inc. It explores among other things the crypto world, tapping into his lengthy experience in building and operating FX trading platforms and venues for asset managers.
