About GFT: History of GFT
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The origins of GFT began in 1997, as veteran commodities and futures trader Gary L. Tilkin was offering futures trading services from a small office in Michigan, U.S. Tilkin soon realised that there were many inefficiencies in the process of calling orders into the futures trading floor, and there were vast opportunities in the emerging foreign currency market. Tilkin envisioned building a network of traders by reaching out to this untapped market. So that year, Tilkin created Global Forex Trading (GT) as a division of Global Futures & Forex, Ltd. to provide over-the-counter (retail) online forex trading services.
Tilkin recognised that technology could overcome obstacles such as service issues, limited market liquidity and narrow trading hours that occurred when trading currencies through the physical trading floor. GFT was able to bypass the exchange by developing technology solutions to provide secure and reliable high-speed online trading solutions and by dealing directly with large money center banks.
As forex trading continued to grow in popularity, GFT continued to focus on exceptional software, customer service and supervisory practices to set it apart from other firms. This strategy worked, and the introduction of GFT’s fully customisable trading software, DealBook® FX, helped to propel the company to the top of the rankings. The company quickly outgrew its small office in Michigan, expanding into Chicago, New York City, Tokyo and Sydney.
Over the last few years, GFT has grown exponentially by identifying new markets and applying the company’s processes to serve traders worldwide. In 2006, GFT Global Markets U.K. Ltd. was established in London as a wholly owned subsidiary to offer CFD trading services. The launch of the additional trading products led to the introduction of the company’s current trading platform, DealBook® 360, which provides trading execution and analysis tools for Australian forex and CFD traders, making it a truly multi-derivative trading platform.
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