MiFID II, the “Markets in Financial Instruments Directive”, is legislation that is set to be implemented across the European Union on January 3rd, 2018. As this due date approaches, many market participants are scrambling to implement changes to hopefully comply with the new rules. Some, on the other hand, prefer to procrastinate as long as possible in the hope of getting further clarity on this pending regulation.
Welcome to a financial world, full of mysterious acronyms. LEI, CASS, ECP, EMIR, MiFIR, MTF, OTF… This industry just loves acronyms and MiFID II just gave us a whole lot of new ones to work with.
One that I have started hearing more often is the LEI number and it relates directly to the requirements embedded in the upcoming MiFID II directive. The following article will hopefully give answers to these much-asked questions, what is an LEI? Who needs one? Why it is required? How do I get one?
FX is the most liquid market in the world with over 5 trillion USD in daily turnover, and 1.6 trillion USD in OTC spot transactions executed each day on average. Volatility makes it an attractive investment vehicle for many traders around the world, institutional and retail. Retail FX has been around for longer than 2 decades now, but we have yet to see the industry reach a mature state.
More than a few times over the past year I have come across the cases where companies thought they were paying for legitimate ASIC licenses whereas in reality that was not the case. There appears to be several light fingered agents operating in the market (particularly, in Asian region) that “sell ASIC licences” at a discount fare.
Trading via a VPS has become very popular in the retail FX community over the last several years. This article aims to provide a summary of the product and its most common uses, as well as to give a general overview of the advantages of using a VPS.
It’s no secret that we live in a technological world; a world where mobile has long become the prevalent vehicle for communication and business for all of us. Mobile now dominates the world’s search queries and mobile trading is reported to be responsible for around 30% of all trading at FX brokerages, with even higher percentages in Asia. As the world is adjusts to this new reality, the release of mobile apps, for its products, is now a must for FX brokerages and platform providers alike.
New technology is transforming how we do business in the 21st century, from the way we communicate, to the route we choose when we drive home from work and even the way we check our fridge for the food that we need. In the same way, the tech revolution has significantly changed things for sales professionals and the sales process. It seems that, every day, new platforms emerge that continue to transform the ways in which we communicate with prospects and that, undoubtedly, impact the way we structure our days.
Prime of Prime in FX, has undergone a lot of changes in the past few years, yet it remains one of the most highly demanded services in today’s marketplace. Prime of Prime’s role is to extend interbank market access to clients who do not have access to credit. To put it another way, it helps create direct market access for those clients who do not meet the stringent collateral and credit criteria that’s needed in order for them to establish their own, direct, prime broker relationship with a bank. The main value that a real Prime of Prime delivers is non-latent access to institutional trading, in a secure and regulated environment.
When a broker’s MT4 server is down, regardless of whether it is live or demo, the impact to the business can be more than significant. It’s not all about dollars either. Whilst financial losses can run into millions of dollars per minute for high-level data transaction businesses such as online brokerages and banks, the damage to reputation, customer retention, and overall confidence in a firm, can be much harder to repair. So, what is your reputation worth?
The quality of your STP trade execution is dependent on a number of important factors including speed/latency, accuracy, rejection ratios and cost. I would like to take this opportunity to review some of these in greater detail.
