Binary Options Update: New Firms Vie For Market Share, Copy Trading On The Agenda

As the binary options industry settles back into its stride after the universal unveiling of new platforms which conform to the Japanese FSA rulings on binary options at the Forex Magnates Summit in Tokyo this month, the industry continues to build its structure in other established regions.

Forex companies wishing to provide binary options trading facilities to their existing and new retail clients is a continuing dynamic, and this month is no exception.

Spot Option Supplies FXCC With Binary Options Platform

FX Central Clearing (FXCC), a CySEC regulated forex company, this month selected the SpotOption platform along with back office facilities including front end, Risk Management , payment processing, CRM, and CMS software.

Upon FXCC’s implementation of the SpotOption platform, Pini Peter, SpotOption’s founder stated “We are proud to call FXCC our partners. We have seen that the team at FXCC strives for perfection and are committed to success, and this is exactly the kind of partner that fits in our client portfolio.”

TRADOLOGIC Continues Cyprus Focus

Joining TRADOLOGIC’s portfolio of brands this month is binary options firm Cedar Finance. The firm had an existing client base and website front end, which TRADOLOGIC migrated to its platform and provided a new corporate website.

A further change to Cedar Finance’s product with the adoption of the TRADOLOGIC platform is in the provision of a new widget-based Trading Platform . Widgets are small applications, hosted in a webpage which can be executed by an end user.

They are designed to enable integrators to replicate the functionality of the existing TRADOLOGIC trading platform by embedding them in third-party content management system. Widgets allow website owners to have their own websites, built with their own technology, hosted on their own servers, with their own databases while at the same time they use TRADOLOGIC trading platform’s capabilities.

Some of the other new features introduced by TRADOLOGIC include upgraded platform, new Range and Turbo options, 120 and 300 seconds trading, boosted performance and the ability to scale depending on the traffic.

On adopting the commissioning of this solution by Cedar Finance, Lior Baruch, VP of Business Development at TRADOLOGIC stated: “We are proud to announce that one of the biggest binary brokers in the world chose to improve their platform by using TRADOLOGIC’s binary trading platform.”

“We expect more brokers who want to expand their market share and increase their revenue will understand that in order to grow they need the strong, stable and innovative technology of TRADOLOGIC.”

“We recommend to some of these companies to keep their current provider and just to add TRADOLOGIC’s platform to their websites so that they can compare and see the advantages of TRADOLOGIC and what makes our company the best binary software provider worldwide” concluded Mr. Baruch.

Buy More Time

O-Systems has upgraded its trading platform to adhere to new UI trends and improved usability for its traders. The new platform features a completely new UI, intended to improve ergonomics.

The new version continues to build on the previous version and the functionality continues to provide traders with the well-known traditional High/Low feature as well as short term options with an expiry time of 60 seconds. The selectable expiry intervals on the platform’s shorter term options have been increased to 120, 180 and 240 seconds in addition.

A point of interest which has been released in the new version is the "Buy more time" feature. This allows traders that have open positions to extend the expiration time by 10, 20 or 30 minutes. Each 10 minutes bought will cost the user 10, 20 or 30 percent (accordingly) from the original position. The cost is taken from the trader's balance keeping the original position as is in terms of asset, direction, investment value and price, the only difference being the extension of the expiration time.

The Limit Orders function in the O-Systems platform allows traders to "order" a trade to be automatically executed when the price of an asset reaches the ordered level. Once it arrives at this price, a position will automatically open for the amount and expiration the user selected , at intervals of 15 minutes, 30 minutes or one hour.

Copy Trading Gains Traction

O-Systems has gone down the social trading route and has experienced considerable

Haim Lagziel, co-CEO and Founder of O-Systems explained to Forex Magnates: “Social trading is a huge success among our traders allowing them to watch and copy other traders. Traders that enabled social trading will have their trades and limit orders published on the social trading wall (no personal or financial information is disclosed) and other traders can simply watch and copy.”

On July 16 this year, a day before the Forex Magnates Tokyo Summit, technology company TradeTools FX (“TTFX”) further demonstrated the requirement for copy trading facilities to be available for binary options traders. The firm incorporated Mirror Trading and Multi Account Trader for binary options into both offerings, due to demand from many clients who, according to TTFX wish to trade binary options but do not have the time or expertise to do so effectively.

A further technical development from TTFX manifests itself in a selectable mode function on the platform, providing four operational modes as follows:

• Close Early –Brokers now have the option (pun intended) to allow clients to close their binary option trades before expiration. The three different modes of this feature are:

• Static: In Static mode, the broker can set how much “commission” is charged to allow a client to close their binary option position prior to expiration and receive a percentage of their original investment. For instance, a Broker may decide to enable the Static close early feature for a 30 minute binary option contract with a 40% close early fee. Allows the trader to be able to retain a percentage of his original investment and the broker to realize profits prior to expiration thus reducing risk.

• Dynamic: In Dynamic mode, the close early amount is calculated by determining if the contract is in or out of the money and by how much time is left to expiration. If a trade is in the money, a broker may also set a minimum threshold that needs to be exceeded before a winning trade can be closed prior to execution. Both Static and Dynamic give the broker the option to set a “freeze time” in seconds and minutes at the time the position is opened and just prior to expiration.

• Algo: TTFX employs a complex algorithm to determine the “true market value” of a binary option contract based on time left to expiration, in the money/out of the money amount and recent market volatility. The Algo setting will allow brokers to give their clients full liquidation opportunities at any time prior to expiration.

It is clear that the binary options industry is evolving in terms of technology as traders become more experienced and the competition increases.

As Japan and Cyprus, both areas which are home to a significant binary options industry presence have a detailed regulatory framework in place for the industry to shore up its future as a recognized method of trading financial instruments and further jurisdictions such as Malta transfer regulatory oversight from the Lotteries and Gaming Authority to the Maltese FSA further alluding to such classification, it is clear to see that this sector is heading from infancy to establishment worldwide.