George Stylianou on emerging economies | Forextime

Transcript

Forextime is an online forex broker that offers trading services on an international scale. Discussing the continuing growth of the forex industry is George Stylianou, Chief Marketing Officer at Forextime.

World Finance: First, introduce us to Forextime and the services you offer your clients

George Stylianou: Forextime is a newly formed forex broker, regulated in the EU. We take a very fresh and dynamic approach to the way we do our business. There are two key things that make us truly unique, and the first one is, well, time- it’s the essence of how we run our business, hence the name Forextime. We use time as the bench mark to optimise the way we do our business both internally and externally. For example, clients can register in less than a minute, and we have a new service called video compliance, whereby we can expedite the approval process so the client can get it up and running really really quickly. We also have MyFXTM so once users have access, they have a birds-eye view of the status of their account, and they can also personalise and optimise the way they trade forex. The second thing that makes us truly unique is the way we deal with localised products and services. One example is our Amanah accounts, this is more popularly known as Islamic accounts in the industry, where they are simply swap free accounts- but we’ve gone an extra step further, we’ve got this account type blessed by the appropriate Imams from the two most popular religious sects. The second is PAMM accounts, now Europe has been looking for a regulated version of PAMM, so far it’s been available outside of Europe but not really regulated, well we have this available for our clients to use. So that’s what we offer our clients that makes us really fresh and new and different in the market place.

“What really makes us different is our experience and expertise in the market place”

World Finance: Now, being a relatively new firm in what is a crowded brokerage space, how do you differentiate yourself from the competition?

George Stylianou: What really makes us different is our experience and expertise in the market place. Andrey Dashin is the founder of our company and he also has a really good track record. He has founded the Alpari group, which is a very successful forex broker. In addition, in amongst the upper ranks of our company management, we have over 50 years of experience, so this really gives us the ability to know what the market needs, and to deliver it when needed. It’s also helped us to achieve maturity much quicker, and allowed us to contend with much more mature brokers.

World Finance: How big has the online fx market grown and what are its future growth prospects?

George Stylianou: Well the forex market has grown tremendously over the last couple of years, and I believe it will grow even more. Forex is becoming more and more accessible to a wider range of demographics since the increased use of mobile and tablet, PC and web-based trading platforms, this opens up a world of opportunities for a lot of forex brokers. With a relatively low minimum deposit anybody could give forex a go and by the time this interview is over it could be thousands of more people that could be interested in trading forex.

World Finance: Emerging economies are real growth areas for forex so why do you think this is and how are you targeting traders in these markets?

George Stylianou: Yes, emerging economies are growing two to three times faster than developed economies, and what this does is it creates a wider pool of people that have more disposable income and this net effect is that more people have more interest in forex because they want to diversify their portfolio’s and assets. We have seen significant interest in central Africa, middle-east, and Asia, and the solution we have for this region is our regulated version of PAMM, which is targeted towards experienced and inexperienced traders.

“The forex market is growing and becoming accessible to a wider range of people due to their increased use of mobile and tablet”

World Finance: And finally, how do you see forex trading developing and changing in the future?

George Stylianou: Well the forex market is growing and becoming accessible to a wider range of people due to their increased use of mobile and tablet, and because the industry is very dynamic and changing, the companies that are able to shift their business model and adapt to these changes are the ones that will prosper in the future. I also believe that social media is the future of forex trading. Forex brokers should find ways to deeper integrate their products and services within these social networks, and this is a key area of focus for us. Because we are a newly formed and dynamic brand, we most certainly have the ability to adapt to all these different situations and deliver to the clients what they want and when they want it.

World Finance: George, thank you.

George Stylianou: Thank you Nick.