Broctagon grows global user base by 300% with MongoDB Atlas

INTRODUCTION

Broctagon, headquartered in Singapore, offers multi-asset liquidity and trading technology to retail brokerage firms worldwide. In a dynamic and evolving financial environment, modern foreign exchange (FX) brokerages require an agile platform that can be tailored to their business objectives while adhering to local regulations.

Broctagon’s flagship product, AXIS, is an FX customer relationship management (CRM) system designed to meet these diverse needs. AXIS distinguishes itself from traditional CRMs by integrating multiple trading platforms, client and referral account management as well as funds handling, and comprehensive data analytics into a regulatory-compliant, highly customizable system.

THE CHALLENGE

The incumbent relational database hampered innovation

Broctagon previously relied on a mix of relational and open-source databases for fixed schemas and ArangoDB for graph databases. However, this setup struggled with growing data volumes, became increasingly costly to manage, faced significant performance issues, and slowed innovation.

To proactively safeguard broker satisfaction and ensure uninterrupted service, Broctagon initiated a search for a new database platform on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The goal was to maintain their high standards by providing a tailored experience that complies with local regulations globally, while easily scaling to accommodate new users across diverse regions.

“Today's FX brokers operate in an incredibly fast-paced environment, where client engagement and profit maximization are paramount,” said Ted Quek, CTO & co-founder, Broctagon. “There has been a significant uptick in brokers using AXIS to launch prop trading challenges, driven by rising demand and the high revenue potential of this trend. As brokers seek to diversify income and gain a competitive edge, AXIS provides the technology and market access they need to capitalize on these opportunities.”

Since its debut in 2017, AXIS has garnered global acclaim for its robust features and adaptability. Now in its third generation, AXIS powers over 150 brokerages and serves more than a million users worldwide. The platform processes over 35 million trade records annually and manages 250 million real-time commission payments each quarter. AXIS’s ability to scale, handling spikes in user interactions of up to 1500% during peak trading hours, showcases its critical role in streamlining operations and optimizing commission workflows.

“As demand for AXIS grew, we started detecting early signs that our old SQL database might struggle with slower data query times,” explains Michael Mai, tech lead, Broctagon. “We also noticed that scalability limitations also made it challenging for us to launch new CRM services that required additional compute power.”

THE SOLUTION

Broctagon gains the agility to experiment with generative AI

In 2019, Broctagon implemented MongoDB Atlas on AWS, providing the scalability and flexibility to innovate rapidly while enhancing the AXIS broker experience at a lower cost.

As a fully managed solution, MongoDB Atlas allows Broctagon to scale effortlessly, reducing the time and expense of manual database management.

“With MongoDB Atlas, scaling is seamless, freeing- up resources previously tied to manual tasks,” says Mai. “Security patches and upgrades now deploy in just one day, a significant improvement over the five-day process with SQL. This efficiency makes our platform management much smoother.”

MongoDB Atlas Online Archive automates data tiering, enabling Broctagon to archive vast data volumes in just 10 minutes—a process that would otherwise take months of in-house development to achieve. This significantly reduces the size of the live database. Using Atlas Data Federation, brokers can easily search 400 million documents (lines of data) in the archive and 300 million in the live database with a single query, retrieving data like trade history in AXIS more efficiently. This capability enhances report generation, including filtered summaries for risk management.

Additionally, MongoDB’s flexible schema model allows documents within a collection to vary in fields and data types, enabling brokerages to tailor electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) processes in AXIS to meet local regulatory requirements. For instance, FX brokers must comply with licensing, AML, and eKYC standards to verify client identities and prevent financial crimes. This flexibility ensures AXIS users adhere to industry standards while protecting clients. Integrating AXIS with leading eKYC providers like Sumsub and Shufti Pro further enhances verification and streamlines onboarding, enabling Broctagon to scale AXIS globally with ease.

A key advantage of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions like AXIS is the continuous provision of free updates, enabling users to keep pace with the rapid and dynamic nature of the FX industry by always having access to the latest features and improvements. MongoDB’s flexible architecture allows Broctagon to efficiently evolve its data structure, quickly respond to changes in datasets—such as extending the scope and type of commission structures for different use cases—and rapidly iterate, prototype, and launch new features.

A prime example of our latest innovation is Broctagon’s end-to-end Proprietary Trading solution, built on MongoDB in just three months. Prop trading has increasingly popularized the use of prop trading challenges—programs that evaluate traders' skills, allowing successful participants to secure firm funding and share in the profits. Broctagon’s plug-and-play Prop module, included with AXIS at no additional cost, meets the surging demand for these challenges, enabling any firm to capitalize on this growing trend. FX brokers with existing trading platforms can easily use AXIS to launch prop challenges instantly, while aspiring prop firms can leverage Broctagon’s fully managed white-label solutions to establish their own branded prop firms.

MongoDB also enables Broctagon to expand the AXIS tech roadmap with advanced cloud capabilities, such as integrating generative artificial intelligence in the near future to create more intuitive trade summaries and data analytics, helping brokerages and traders better track and manage their prop trading progress.

THE RESULTS

Broctagon grows user base by 300% in one year

With MongoDB, Broctagon is empowering an expanding base of Prop firms and brokers to better manage their customers through the AXIS CRM. The company can now provision AXIS to new brokerages in just 24 hours, compared to the three days it took with its previous SQL database, resulting in a 300% growth in its user base within a year and supporting over 1.5 million traders globally. MongoDB’s scalability allows Broctagon to archive and retrieve trading data efficiently, enabling users to generate reports up to 10 times faster.

AXIS currently supports 13 languages and features a payment solutions hub that allows brokers to customize and integrate any FIAT (a currency that is issued by a government and is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver) or cryptocurrency of their choice. With over 380 customizable parameters and analytical tools, AXIS is tailored to meet the unique needs of brokers, all within an intuitive interface. This versatility has positioned AXIS as a key growth driver for Broctagon, enabling the company to expand into diverse markets across Europe, Southeast Asia, and Southern Africa. Beyond serving FX brokers, the newly integrated proprietary trading (prop trading) module has also been instrumental in launching numerous proprietary trading firms, which trade financial instruments using their own capital.

“In the world of FX trading, time is money,” said Quek. “With MongoDB Profiler, we identified and reduced a 50-second query to just two seconds, allowing brokers to make faster, data-driven decisions.”

The flexible schema of MongoDB Atlas provides Broctagon the capability to store diverse and complex data sets, which are growing by tens of millions of documents each month. This flexibility, combined with cost-effectiveness and high performance, drives Broctagon’s innovation, enabling the company to launch new services, like the prop trading solution, significantly faster.