During the passing week the most interesting stories from the online trading industry were exclusive interviews that you could have only seen here on Finance Magnates. We revealed what media company is looking for a strategic investor, how the Cyprus regulator sees her role handling trader complaints and learned what technology the founder of Boston Technologies thinks can kill the prime brokerage business. Other news this week included a UK broker expanding its binary offering and a Japanese broker dropping a platform.
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Binaries
On Monday the London Stock Exchange listed brokerage CMC Markets (LON:CMCX) has expanded its product portfolio with a range of new binary options called Binaries. The instruments will cover a broad range of popular FX pairs, indices and commodities and will feature four specific binary types: Ladders, One Touch, Up/Downs and Range.
The new offering is distinct from the ‘Coundowns’ products that CMC Markets launched in July of last year. The main differences are that there are four types of ‘Binaries’ compared with only one type of Countdown; Binaries includes a volatility element to the price which determines the profit or loss while Countdowns are non-volatility based; a trader can close out of a binary trade that is in progress; and Countdown time-frames start from 30 seconds while the new binary time-frames start from 5 minute intervals.
CySEC Chairman on IronFX
On Monday we also published a special interview with Demetra Kalogerou, the Chairman of CYSEC, one of the most prominent and influential figures in the global financial regulations landscape.She discussed the creation of the CIF Investor Compensation Fund and the IronFX debacle that shook the industry.
"...it’s important to underline that the activation of the ICF is the last resort. The ICF cannot be activated unless the CySEC revokes a CIF’s license, the CIF commits bankruptcy, and it is not in position to cover its outstanding obligations vis-à-vis its clients after the liquidation of its assets.”
Investing.com is the only light in the darkness of mobile FX publishing
On Tuesday we published a lengthy interview with the co-founder and CEO of Investing.com, Dror Efrat, to hear where the firm is headed next. He is looking for a strategic investor and recently reached a mobile traffic monetization breakthrough.
"Generally speaking, if you are not on mobile you will not be a player going forward. I look at players in our industry, publishers, and they are not there. Most of the financial sites are not really there and specifically in forex it’s complete darkness – in terms of the level and the depth of the products, the level of seriousness (or lack of it). Some platforms are done well but generally speaking I am amazed by how forex is lagging so far behind, and how no one realizes that this is where the world is moving towards, and moving fast."
Blockchain can kill prime brokerage
On the same day we also published an interview with George Popescu, the current Chairman of the Board of Advisors for Gatecoin and the founder of the Boston Technologies (BT) group. He spoke about blockchain innovation as well as the cross-sections of forex and Cryptocurrencies .
"...prime brokers are these days very hard to find and, when found, very expensive. So many banks have exited the FX prime brokerage space that the remaining even raised the minimum capital requirements to become a client. I believe that the really interesting business to do is to use blockchain to clear EURUSD trades and replace and kill the prime brokerage function in the fiat currency trading space."
Monex bidding farewell to Tradable
On Friday the Monex Group opted to stop offering the Tradable platform. The decision by Monex represents a staunch departure from just two years ago, when the broker jettisoned its MT4 capabilities for Tradable, in essence cutting the chord on the most utilized platform in the foreign exchange (FX) industry.
During the week the Monex Group also reported its financial metrics for Q4 2015 ending March 31, 2016, which saw a slight loss when measured against a declining prior quarter,
