Broker-neutral FX platform provider Spotware Systems has today announced a significant upgrade to its cTrader suite, centered around the method by which trades are displayed within the user interface, further depicting the increasing development direction of new platforms.
Transparency A Priority
Spotware Systems considers this a development which aims to increase the level of transparency with a full breakdown of positions into orders being present in the application, thus allowing users to view trade requests from traders to Liquidity providers along with liquidity provider execution reports.
cTrader Platform
Denoting Newly Revised UI
The new structure will also be available on cAlgo, Spotware’s algorithmic Trading Platform , and cTrader Web, which is cTrader’s twin HTML5 platform. The dynamics associated with analytics tools and propensity toward interaction with the user builds on Spotware's integration of myfxbook's social trading and analytical tools.
Informative
New ‘information windows’ provide traders an exhaustive set of all details relating to individual positions, orders and deals. These details include exact matching times, fill times, and fill rates, while ‘timelines’ at the bottom of the window show all related trading events in order of when they occurred.
Market Snapshots are also shown for every deal. These snapshots give users a precise view of market pricing and liquidity at the exact time of execution, helping them to understand why a deal was filled at the price it was, or why it may have been partially filled.
Alex Katsaros, who heads the cTrader development team, made a corporate statement today that, “This kind of position breakdown is a great way for users to see exactly what’s happening with each trade, from opening click to closed position.”
Mr. Katsaros considers the latest release as yet another step towards building trust between all counterparties. “This kind of itemization and depth of information for each trade isn’t available on any other FX platform.
We’ve added another milestone in our commitment to extreme transparency, which we believe benefits not only traders, but brokers as well. Of course, the principle is far from exclusive to financial trading - businesses all over the world are raising their efforts to be more transparent because they’ve seen how well it benefits all parties," concluded Mr. Katsaros.
Third Party vs Proprietary
At this year's iFXEXPO in Cyprus, a panel discussion on technology arrived at the subject of whether retail FX brokers' requirements are best served by taking an off-the-shelf solution, or opting for a product supplied by a third party.
This was a timely discussion as it took place during MetaQuotes' sustained onslaught against software providers which supply customization, social trading and ancillary products for the MetaTrader 4 platform.
Alain Broyon, CEO at Dukascopy Bank, addressed the panel saying that he considers it important for certain popularly requested custom objects to be provided as an integral part of the platform. He explained, “The Jforex platform is built with different interfaces that can be set by the broker. Every platform should have a detail that is different, to help it be global and allow the technology to be in line with regulation.”
Tim Haman, CEO At Fair Trading Technology said: “Traders want to use EAs, signals and other electronic methods. They may not be programmers therefore they need to be able to have a list of pre-set options to customize their platform to suit trading style.”
Mr Higgins said, “We see a lot of server side integration, copy trading, Multi-Account Managers, and are very big on the server side. There is a lot of demand for back office integration so that databases can be managed and reports to regulators can be easily pulled off the system.”
When asked if the future is open platforms, the answer was a resounding yes. Closed platforms are not offering enough solutions to brokers or traders according to unanimous agreement from the panel. They believe that it is down to programmers and developers to continue to engineer open platforms and to add vital aspects to the user interface.
Just days after MetaQuotes showed the red card to the copy trading developers, and then announced its impending third party marketplace at the iFXEXPO this year, questions began to circulate as to how long market domination by a single platform can continue.
Ilya Holeu, Managing Director of Spotware Systems, conveyed his view to Forex Magnates.
“Domination of the single platform is definitely at its end,” said Mr. Holeu at the time.
Certainly, the platform community is ever expanding, and whilst MetaTrader 4 still continues to carve out a sizable market share in the retail sector, the establishment and growing popularity of non-dealing-desk-based, third party platform suites demonstrate that not only are they here to stay, but are becoming increasingly omnipresent.
