Polish Regulatory Backlash Drives XTB Shares to All-Time Lows

A little over a year ago, Polish retail brokerage company XTB Dom Maklerski marked one of the most successful public offerings in the industry, valuing the company at $349 million. The listing at the time constituted the biggest share sale via the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2016.

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Yesterday, Polish regulatory authorities marked the beginning of a new era for retail traders in the country. The maximum Leverage Leverage In financial trading, leverage is a loan supplied by a broker, which facilitates a trader in being able to control a relatively large amount of money with a significantly lesser initial investment. Leverage therefore allows traders to make a much greater return on investment compared to trading without any leverage. Traders seek to make a profit from movements in financial markets, such as stocks and currencies.Trading without any leverage would greatly diminish the potential rewards, so traders In financial trading, leverage is a loan supplied by a broker, which facilitates a trader in being able to control a relatively large amount of money with a significantly lesser initial investment. Leverage therefore allows traders to make a much greater return on investment compared to trading without any leverage. Traders seek to make a profit from movements in financial markets, such as stocks and currencies.Trading without any leverage would greatly diminish the potential rewards, so traders Read this Term for foreign exchange traders will be cut to 1:25. The news came as a follow-up to a previous action taken by the Polish Financial Supervision Commission (KNF) in 2015, when it capped leverage at 1:100.

Shares of the biggest Polish retail Forex Forex Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Read this Term and CFDs brokerage publicly listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange tanked over 12 percent in response, marking a new all-time low at PLN 6.15.

The company’s revenues from the country make up a substantial portion of its earnings. In 2016, XTB sourced over $21.5 million (PLN 80 million) of revenues from Poland. In the first quarter of 2017, the brokerage reported about $2.9 million (PLN 10.6 million) of revenues, which represented a decline of 52 percent when compared to a year ago.

For the full year in 2016, XTB’s revenues from Poland constituted 32 percent of the company’s total operating income. Looking at the first quarter of 2017, the figure declined to 18 percent, which is a much more manageable situation, but nevertheless paints a dim picture for at least a portion of those revenues.

The regulatory backlash against retail brokers started across the EU in the aftermath of the Swiss National Bank crisis. At the time, a number of brokers chose to transfer their losses to clients and caught the attention of financial industry supervisors across the EU.

The latest changes to the Polish industry show that the strategy of overwhelming clients with risk, which some brokers do by providing excessive leverage, is coming to an end. Companies will need to find better ways to entice their clients to remain active without taking too much risk onto their books.