Awards: Oanda

Demand from retail foreign exchange traders has been changing rapidly over the past year, particularly as interest in cryptocurrencies grows and clients look for new, innovative pricing models from their providers.

Vatsa Narasimha, president and chief executive of retail broker Oanda, says additional asset classes have become increasingly important for customers, especially products around cryptocurrencies.

“While we have remained cautious in our approach so far, we are looking to launch our own cryptocurrency product in the coming months, which will roll out in stages around the world where permitted. Our crypto offering will enable clients to trade bitcoin with one of the fastest execution engines in the world,” says Narasimha.

Oanda has been voted the winner of the Best Retail FX Platform category at the 2018 FX Week e-FX Awards.

While we have remained cautious in our approach so far, we are looking to launch our own cryptocurrency product in the coming months

Vatsa Narasimha, Oanda

The company also introduced a new core-pricing model in November 2017, for its Australian and US clients, with plans to roll out an alternative for the traditional, spread-based method. Dubbed Oanda Core Pricing, the feature allows clients to access spreads as low as 0.1 and pay a flat-rate commission in more than 70 currencies.

“In addition, we also reduced spreads on several key indices to as low as 0.5 during local market hours, further reducing the cost of trading,” he adds.

Responsible leverage

But the regulatory environment has been challenging, especially in Europe, where the European Securities and Markets Authority reduced the maximum leverage to 30:1 for major FX pairs. Regulators also took aim at the contracts-for-difference space, with Esma restricting the marketing and distribution of these products, deeming them too risky for clients.

“Oanda supports this move towards ‘responsible leverage’ and has for many years offered some of the lowest leverage limits in the industry,” says Narashima.

While until now, Oanda’s core strategy focused on organic growth, following the sale of the company to private equity group CVC Capital Partners in May, acquisitions could be on the horizon.

“[This] will now enable us to also turn our attention to driving inorganic growth, and as such we are open to acquiring other companies in order to help us build our business around the world,” Narashima says.

“In Asia-Pacific, we’ll continue to invest heavily in Singapore, Southeast Asia, Australia and Japan. However, we’re also looking to grow in some of the larger European markets in the coming years. As a result, this is a very exciting stage in the history of the company and a turning point for our global strategy,” he adds.

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