I’ve been contacted by a representative of FxCompany that asked me if I can do an on-line interview with him. So, I decided that the readers of my blog would probably be interested to hear what one of the popular MetaTrader broker can say about its business and the overall market situation. I’ve sent the questions to Mr. Andrew Mecow, the Head of Partners Department, and soon received his answers. And now you can read the whole interview and see if FxCompany, as a broker, can be interesting to you.
To me, on-line Forex broker market looks very close to oversaturated. Understanding that FxCompany is quite a new on-line broker, what keeps up you in the market? What’s your main attractor for your customers?
Well, first of all, I would like to thank you, Andrei, for letting me bring my point of view to the community. Now closer to the questions. Online retail Forex Market, indeed, is quite full now, but changes are on their way. I am sure the era of unregulated «gray» brokers is close to its end. And in the next several years we will see that only licensed and regulated brokers will be the ones who rule. Regulation will not be an advantage, it will be a standard.
So I could start enumerating our advantages, but they are available on our website at http://www.fxcompany.net. The essential advantage, to my mind, is license and regulation. The policies we adopt and the obligations we take on when we enter the market and our effort for transparent activities and transactions. That’s the point, I think.
As far as I know, FxComapny was initially registered as a Russian company, why did you move to Mauritius? Is it somehow connected with your international expansion?
Yes, it is, of course, connected with our international expansion. We have registered a new LLC, we have obtained a FSC license and heading for the CySEC license, and therefore we went abroad.
How did FxCompany start? What has lead to a creation of the Forex broker that we can see now?
Back in 2004 FxCompany was incorporated with the aim of providing top-class brokerage services. This is quite a usual story for a private or an institutional investor to be dissatisfied with the services offered on the market and to start a new enterprise. This is how a lot of brokers out there apperared, as far as I know.
You offer both a stand-alone MetaTrader 4 trading platform, but why don’t you offer some web-based platform that can be ran in a trader’s browser? Wouldn’t it be a very convenient solution for many traders?
Well, I am not the supporter of web platforms. Traders deal with risks, money, sometimes very short operations. And there are a lot of places in the world with either a too expensive or too unstable (or both) internet access. So, in my opinion, a web platform is connected with even higher risks, than usual. While our policy is to minimize risks. Different browsers, different protocols, a huge number of hidden catches which can influence the trading process. In my opinion it just isn’t worth it. There is a certain difference between editing a table in Google Docs and Forex/Stock Market trading, if you know what I mean.
Do you plan any new exciting features added to FxCompany? Or do you think that as a broker you can’t be improved any further?
Well, pity the broker who thinks «it can’t be improved any further». This is the moment when the broker dies. Our plans are wide and we work all the time to improve our performance. In the nearest future we will issue free Visa debit cards for our customers, we will enable a full range of mobile and SMS services, we will certainly widen the range or trading tools, we are working on both Personal and Partner Offices (backend areas) to make them easier and more convenient, we will provide video tutorials and market analytics. Like I always say, stay tuned, there’s going to be a lot more of fun.
Broker regulation question looks more and more important inside the traders’ community. What can you say about how FxCompany is regulated? Do you plan registering with NFA or CFTC?
Yes, that’s what I was talking about in the very beginning. It will soon be a standard. Right now we are licensed and regulated by the FSC Mauritius. The Financial Services Commission which enables us to apply a certain number of policies (Anti-Money Laundering, Know Your Customer, etc) and obliges us to be audited each year to confirm our license. Right now we are applying for CySEC license, and later on we will apply for NFA. It all takes time and effort (which is right, every licensed company must be thoroughly audited before obtaining a license), but we are doing our best and we will succeed.
You offer a lot of futures, commodities and CFD products to trade on. Are they popular among Forex traders? Or do you have to promote them somehow among the customers.
In fact, yes. They are somewhat different from the usual Forex currency pairs but they gained their popularity. So we do not have to promote them. As a broker we should provide the widest possible choice of the trading tools and then it’s up to the customers to decide. And, certainly, we can’t (nor do we want to actually) influence their choice. Of course major currency pairs are the most popular, but trust me, CFDs have reserved their spot as well.
FxCompany offers a lot of various methods to deposit and withdraw funds, including WebMoney, Moneybookers and Liberty Reserve. Do you plan adding any new methods or drop existing ones soon?
Yes, sure there will be more of them. Debit and credit cards processing, Alertpay, PerfectMoney. We are always open for any suggestions. As long as an e-currency is stable (we all remember E-Gold) we are fine working with it. What is more attractive — is the local currency and local bank deposit, so that people don’t have to pay for wire transfers and currency exchange. We already offer local deposits in Mumbai, India, and we plan to have them soon in the majority of countries that we are targeted to, like Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan. I hope our customers will be pleased with that.
Didn’t you think about offering lower minimum account size or micro-lot trading opportunity to attract more customers? Isn’t $100 too much for a first deposit in the current conditions?
In my opinion, such conditions are relevant to the market. We all know a lot of «1 USD deposit-2 pips spread-0.001 lot-whatever else-forex» companies out there, offering these lucrative conditions just to gain a fast profit. Whenever a person starts trading there, he/she sees the other side, like spikes, off-quotes: and so on, this story remains the same for over 10 years. So we do not compete to offer the «cheapest» services, we strive for providing the best services on the market. We are not chasing after the instant profit, we will stay here for long.
MetaTrader 5 platform is going to be released this fall. Are you ready to offer this new version of the trading platform to your traders?
Yes, we are. Funny, I can’t even say who is waiting for MT5 more, traders or brokers. We are waiting for the release, and as soon as it happens — we will offer it as an option for our customers.
And the final question that I’ve asked to every Forex broker representative, which I have interviewed — is Forex trading a gambling? And what sets it apart from gambling if you think that it’s something different?
A very interesting question, thank you. It is a matter of an attitude, I think. Forex was never intended for playing. It was invented for trading, a full-time work actually. But there are a lot of people considering it to be a kind of an online game, a gambling, allowing to get some fast money. Such people risk their funds and eventually they always lose their deposits. While serious studies of analysis (ever seen those huge Tech Analysis books?), money management, trading techniques, etc turn trading into serious work. And this is where the games end.
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Read the rest of Interview with FxCompany (23 words)
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