It has been a busy year for RoboMarkets. The Cyprus-based broker rebranded at the end of 2017, changing its company name from RoboForex to RoboMarkets. In September of the same year, the company released an automated trading solution for its retail clients and in the past couple of months the broker opened a new office in Prague. Finance Magnates spoke with RoboMarkets' Chief Business Officer, Konstantin Rashap, to get a better idea of why the company has been making the moves it has and what we can expect to see from them in the future.
RoboMarkets now provides automated trading services to retail customers. Do you see any substantial differences in the performance of your robotic and human retail traders?
We launched "Strategy Builder" in September 2017 as an automated solution that enables our clients to create trading strategies without any programming skills, and up to date, no one has managed to create a similar software.
Our clients are actively getting to know its features and mechanisms and use it more and more often. Within the first eight months, over 80% of trades opened on the platform where executed by robots. Algorithmic strategies allow traders to automate the most routine processes, which removes the necessity of monitoring the market and waiting for reliable signals. Once you have launched your automated strategy, it will function in the cloud and place your orders at the most appropriate moment. Thus, you eliminate emotions and resolve the concentration issue, as well as other human errors that negativity affect trading performance.
You recently re-branded, changing your name from RoboForex to RoboMarkets. Has this helped achieve the intended result, and has the client base increased or the client’s profile changed as a result?
First and foremost, we wanted to clearly differentiate two brands that existed then, those being RoboForex Ltd and RoboForex (CY) Ltd. These companies are governed by different jurisdictions and had many differences regarding the products and services offered. That's one of the reasons why RoboMarkets brand appeared, to avoid confusion.
Another important reason is our strategic plans for creating an international brokerage house and expanding our line of products, with a competitive condition, that can be used by clients.
We are actively growing serving European clients, while also bringing in new services and tradeable assets. Lately, we have opened a few offices in Central Europe that help us develop our business and bring people closer to our products and services. Soon, we are going to launch some more new features targeting both retail and institutional traders.
MiFID II has been in force now for several months and the GDPR implementation date is fast approaching, how have these two pieces of Regulation affected your European business and what impact do you see them having in the near to long term future?
We see MiFID II and GDPR amendments as positive for the current markets. It is an excellent opportunity for brokerage firms to concentrate on the quality of service and transparency, which is the foundation of our company. We are not only expanding our tradable assets portfolio to accommodate a variety of investors, but we are also taking the quality of service provided to our clients very seriously.
The new rules and regulations are good for the market in general as well, and they aid businesses to becomes more civilized and transparent in their offerings, which is good for the financial markets and investment reputation. It will also help identify fraudulent companies that abuse the overall brokerage industry.
Cryptocurrencies have clearly had a sizeable impact on RoboMarkets business in the past twelve months, why should clients trade with you and not with another broker or directly on some crypto-exchange?
RoboMarkets is a regulated broker with 6+ years of history in the industry, which means we are under the regulators constant supervision and aim to provide clients with standards that defend their interests. News on hacking cryptocurrency exchanges has become quite common lately, with the criminals stealing money from client accounts. The cryptocurrency exchanges take the obligations to keep the investors' currency tokens, while we as a regulated broker keep all client funds in major European banks, which is a significant security guarantee.
Crypto exchange trading terminals lack essential trading features, as in most cases you have access to primitive features buy and sell orders, and that's it. You can't view multiple charts at the same time, you can't use indicators, and, unlike R Trader, there are no automatic strategy building options. Overall, they lack everything ones needs to trade effectively.
What plans do you have for international expansion and what role do regional regulations play in guiding RoboMarkets’ expansion?
Perhaps, 2018 is going to determine this considering the new MiFID II implementations. We generally see expanding office locations as a strategic opportunity to provide better services and support for the local clients, which is nearly impossible as remote service. As of now, we've got a representative office in the Czech Republic and tied agent in Germany, but soon we are going to open other branches in Central and Western Europe.
RoboMarkets stopped provided binary options trading services, is this something you regret doing?
The use of dishonest approaches in advertising to attract clients, and in some cases real scams by competitors, led us to a decision to shut down these services, as we care about our clients and reputation. As a consequence of such activity, a new trend to limit binary options trading is dominant in many countries, and this makes both the brokers and the traders turn to more transparent markets, which eventually has some positive influence on the financial markets overall.
Is your CopyFX copytrading solution still popular? How do you plan on promoting it for further use?
CopyFX is popular, and we've got a few options to develop it further. We can say that in close future the solution will be refocused to a professional audience and transformed significantly. Unluckily, I can't disclose more detailed info about it right now.
