Douglas Borthwick

Douglas Borthwick is the Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Business Development at INX Limited trading platform company. A 25+ years financial industry veteran and fintech expert, Mr. Borthwick’s experience ranges from Morgan Stanley to Merrill Lynch and Latin American FX trading business Standard Chartered.

Douglas Borthwick graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BA in Economics and in 1992 he received his MBA in Financial Engineering from Yale University School of Management.

Since then, Douglas Borthwick has held various positions in the financial and trading industries. Starting off from Morgan Stanley from 1996 to 2005, managing foreign exchange derivatives trading groups in New York and London, with a strong focus on emerging markets.

He then ran the strategic trading desk at Merrill Lynch from 2005 to 2006, and the Latin American FX trading business at Standard Chartered from 2006 to 2009. In 2010, Mr Borthwick managed trading and research areas for the startup foreign exchange agency Faros Trading, a company that was later sold to FXCM in 2013.

Mr Borthwick founded and built the Chapdelaine FX electronic and voice trading business for inter-dealer broker TP-ICAP from 2012 to September 2018.

As CMO and Head of Business Development at INX Mr Borthwick joined INX Limited as Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Business Development in 2019. INX is a blockchain asset trading solution and a regulated cryptocurrency, security token, and derivatives trading platform in the U.S.

Under Mr Borwtwick’s leadership, INX launched in August 2020 the first SEC Registered (F1) Security Token IPO in US history, for the development of their cryptocurrency and security token trading platform.

In a recent interview for Dinis Guarda citiesabc openbusinesscouncil YouTube Series, Douglas Borthwick said the following about his vision on crypto, exchanges and the future of the market:

Realizing INX Limited Vision. 

“We wanted to create a platform that would allow for digital asset exchanges to be as safest and accessible for investors as possible. To make sure we could realize that vision, we needed to make sure we had the financial strength that such an endeavour required. That is why we created a Security Token and then do an IPO with that Security Token.”

Regulation in crypto. 

“We also understand the importance of being compliant with the current regulatory framework as the best way to create a safety net for the listing and trading of both our INC Token and other cryptocurrencies that would be later available through our platform. This is something we are striving for in the near future because we believe in crypto’s potential and we want people/investors to feel confident about trading and using crypto. And we are trying to make this space a more secure place where everyone is welcomed.”

Creating a Security Token trading market. 

“There are many cryptocurrencies that are being traded as utility tokens but I think the SEC at some point will declare them as security tokens. So I expect a delineation at some point which will affect many exchanges in the U.S.

An important point is that in order to create a $1.3+ trillion market you need to onboard both retail and institutional investors. We saw that back in 2018 when we sent our prospects to the SEC. And for that to happen you need to create volume, liquidity and an attractive market for these millions of retail investors that are already using decentralized exchanges. Once you have that, you also want to attract institutional investors, and they only go to exchanges that are compliant with current regulations.”

About Security Tokens. 

“People and traders might not know it yet, but security tokens are the way to go for the industry. Security tokens are essentially digital, liquid contracts for fractions of any asset that already has value, like real estate, a car, or corporate stock. Using security tokens means investors can expect that their ownership stake is preserved on the blockchain ledger. In short, they are a hybrid between the shares of a company and a cryptocurrency, with the advantage that they have a lower cost than stock shares and the security and advantages of blockchain technology. Security tokens can be applied in a different range of industries. In the creative industries, for example, artists can tokenize their intellectual property to make it fairer for creators and the public.”