It has just been revealed that Saxo Capital Markets CY Ltd. informed the Cyprus Securities & Exchange Commission (CySEC) that it will terminate its offering of the MT4 platform and stop onboarding new clients from today, Friday, June 5, 2015.
This move to abandon the dominant retail FX platform follows similar decisions made recently by Japanese brokers, symbolizing the efforts of the industry to break away from dependence on a single software provider. Saxo management apparently felt that after the launch of the broker's new proprietary multi-asset trading platform, SaxoTraderGO, it was time to break away from MT4 and gain absolute control over the software and its retail traders use.
Matteo Cassina, Global Head of Sales, Products and Platforms, Saxo Bank A/S, said, “Today’s announcement is in line with Saxo Bank’s overarching strategy of focusing on the Bank’s core offering and our commitment to continuously improving our clients’ trading experience. With SaxoTraderGO, we have built and launched the world’s most intuitive and sophisticated multi-asset platform with a focus on usability. We believe this offering is superior and removes the need for clients to trade on an MT4 platform."
“SaxoTraderGO has already received outstanding reviews and our clients have fully embraced the platform. One week after the official launch of SaxoTraderGO, 35% of all Saxo’s unique Trading Platform users were trading on SaxoTraderGO. This early success has made our decision to close down the Cyprus-based MT4 offering straightforward. Current clients of Saxo Capital Markets CY Ltd. will be offered the opportunity to continue their client relationship with Saxo Bank and they will be provided with access to the SaxoTraderGO platform,” he added.
Neil Browning, Global Head of FX Sales, Saxo Bank A/S, added regarding the non-retail situation, “Saxo Bank will continue to offer MT4 Liquidity solutions to institutional clients and brokers, either via an MT4 client account linked directly to a Saxo account or via various bridge solutions. For instance, asset managers who make use of MT4 as an execution channel will continue to benefit from Saxo’s back office platform and multi asset account structures. Saxo Bank will also continue to focus on providing our liquidity and prime brokerage solutions to retail brokers and providers in the global MT4 market from our pricing and aggregation centres in NY4, LD4 and TY3.”
