Trading platform and CRM software for Toronto firms.

Canada is not one market for a trading firm, it is a set of provincial ones with a national self regulatory body sitting across them. A firm in Toronto that wants to deal with retail clients works with CIRO and with the provincial securities commission where its clients live, and the rules on what may be offered and how it may be marketed differ enough that most founders discover it late. The technology question follows from that, not the other way round.

This page is for people building or running a brokerage or a prop firm out of Toronto: what SGHK supplies, what stays with your firm, and the practical detail of payments, languages and hours in this market.

The regulatory backdrop in Canada

Securities regulation in Canada is provincial. Ontario firms deal with the Ontario Securities Commission, Quebec firms with the Autorite des marches financiers, and so on, with the Canadian Securities Administrators coordinating between them. Investment dealers are members of CIRO, the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization formed in 2023 from the merger of IIROC and the MFDA, which handles member rules, capital and conduct oversight, with the Canadian Investor Protection Fund covering member insolvency. Retail contracts for difference and margin foreign exchange are offered through that dealer route rather than sold from offshore into the country.

SGHK is not a dealer, a bank or an adviser and gives no legal or regulatory advice. Registration, capital, client money and conduct obligations are your firm's, with your counsel. Our job is to make sure the systems generate what those obligations require day to day: a complete audit trail on every account and every rule change, per client statements, exportable transaction records and a portal that keeps verification documents attached to the client file. Background reading on regulated versus unregulated brokers and broker licence registers is useful if you are still mapping your options.

What SGHK supplies

SGHK built eTrader in-house and maintains it. SGHK builds both CRMs in-house, and also handles compliance, payments and corporate structuring. Everything is hosted in the cloud by SGHK and managed by your firm, with updates and support from us, so a Toronto firm does not need a platform engineering team to open. Everything is encrypted, and your firm is the only one with access to its data and its clients' data. Once your licensing and paperwork are in place, the platform can be live within 24 hours.

Payments and banking for a Canadian firm

Canadian banks treat leveraged trading as a high risk category, and account opening is slow even for a registered dealer. Most firms end up with a domestic operating account, one or more specialist processors for client money, and card acquiring arranged separately. Interac is the payment method Canadian clients expect for domestic transfers, and wires remain the default for larger amounts, with the usual delays and fees on cross border legs. Our pieces on high risk merchant accounts and payout rails compared cover the mechanics without the sales pitch.

Both CRMs are processor agnostic. You connect the providers your firm has actually been approved for, and the software reconciles them into one ledger per client, in Canadian dollars, US dollars or both. For prop firms the withdrawal side matters more than the deposit side, because payout speed is what traders talk about publicly.

Languages, hours and firm structure

Toronto runs on Eastern Time, which puts the desk in the middle of the New York session and at the tail of London. That is convenient for staffing and awkward for reporting, because a platform whose day is cut at a European server time will show your team a stale set of numbers each morning. Statement cut-offs, session markers and challenge day boundaries are configurable per firm, so your books close at your midnight.

Language is the other local detail. English is the working language in Toronto, but a Canadian client base includes French speakers with a legal expectation of being served in French, and Toronto firms often sell into Latin America and South Asia as well. The trader portal, emails and notifications follow each client's own language, not the firm's.

On structure, Toronto firms typically split into a registered Canadian entity for domestic retail business and a separate group company for clients elsewhere. The software supports several brands, entities and books on one installation, which is usually why a firm calls us in the first place rather than running two vendors.

Talking to us

Book a call and we will run a live broker or prop firm environment with your own instrument list loaded, or text us if you only need to know whether something is supported. Firms weighing up more than one base can compare this page with Mexico City and Auckland, or browse every location page.

Where SGHK is based, and where we meet firms in Toronto

All of the software, the contracts and the policies come from SGHK Softwares Limited in Hong Kong, the holding company that builds and licenses eTrader and both CRMs. The team works out of Dubai. We hold no office or licence in Canada, and none is needed: the platform is hosted in the cloud by SGHK and managed by your firm, so a firm in Toronto runs exactly what a firm anywhere else runs, and your licence, your client money and your compliance obligations stay entirely with your own entity.

Being in Dubai keeps the team on the industry circuit and within easy reach of Toronto for calls and meetings, in a time zone that overlaps most of the trading world.

In person, the place to find us is the industry circuit. The team attends Forex Expo Dubai and the other major shows, wearing the SGHK and eTrader shirts, and you can walk up without an appointment, ask for a live demo of the terminal and both CRMs, and talk to the Executive Directors directly in English, Italian, Romanian or Russian. See where to find us at the expo.

Frequently Asked Questions

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