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Quick answers
Did Richard Olsen co-found OANDA?
Yes. OANDA's own history page, checked September 22, 2026, says the company was "co-founded by Dr Michael Stumm, a professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, and Dr Richard Olsen of The Olsen Ltd, a leading econometric research and development firm." The Swiss finance publication finews reported on October 2, 2018 that Olsen had co-founded OANDA more than twenty years earlier, and that the company was sold to a private equity firm in spring 2018.
Was Olsen the Toronto half of OANDA?
No. Michael Stumm was the University of Toronto computer engineering professor; Olsen is Swiss and worked from Switzerland, coming to the company from the econometric research firm Olsen Ltd. That split is set out on OANDA's own history page, checked September 22, 2026, and finews described Olsen on October 2, 2018 as a fixture of the Swiss finance scene.
What did OANDA do at the start?
It published currency exchange rate data on the web. OANDA's history page, checked September 22, 2026, says that by 1998 the company had "revolutionised currency data by becoming the first company to share exchange rate information on the Internet, free of charge." The retail foreign exchange trading business came later; finews described OANDA on October 2, 2018 as a currency trading platform.
What is Richard Olsen doing now?
This is not established. After OANDA he founded the crypto exchange Lykke in Zug, Switzerland in 2015, which finews covered on October 2, 2018. No page checked on September 22, 2026 confirms a current role for him, and no later account of Lykke could be corroborated beyond a single secondary outlet, so nothing further is claimed here.