ISSUE #6 VOL. 1
Charlotte Day TELLS US HOW TO
MAKE Your Content WORK Vorsprung Durch Technik! Evgeny Sorokin Talks IT
FINANCE FEEDS FEATURE
DONALD TRUMP & NIGEL FARAGE CAN BOOST YOUR SALES! Paul Orford AMB PRIME
SUPER WOMAN
Maria Nikolova tells us her story
Tradeworks IN Event Hosted THE SCENE
by Graham Moss
BUSINESS WITH BAUMGART
A few words with Jonathan Baumgart
ASK
ANDREW!
Ask the Experts Interview with Andy Anastasiou
DIAMOND GEEZER
Insight into diamonds from Ludovic Vuillier
EASY
DOES IT! In-depth interview with Nicolas Shamtanis
DIRECTORY
ISSUE #6 | VOL.1
QA
ISSUE
INTERVIEW
BUSINESS WITH BAUMGART
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Jonathan Baumguart CEO Atomiq Consulting
EDITOR'S NOTE
INTERVIEW
P 25-27
DIAMOND GEEZER!
VIEW FROM THE TOP
P 2-3
Editor in Chief | Paul Orford
Ludovic Vuillier CEO LiveRates Feeds
P 4-7
INTERVIEW
IN THE NICK OF TIME Nicolas Shamtanis Chief Sales & Retention OfямБcer Easy Markets
FINANCE FEEDS FEATURE P 8-10
INTERVIEW
DONALD TRUMP & NIGEL FARAGE CAN BOOST YOUR SALES!
SUPERWOMAN
Managing Editor Maria Nikolova Finance Feeds
P 11-15
INTERVIEW
P 30-32
ARTICLE BY Paul Orford from AMB PRIME
MAKE YOUR CONTENT WORK Creative Director Charlotte Day Contentworks Agency
P 16-18
INTERVIEW
VORSPRUNG DURCH TECHNIK! Head of R&D Evgeny Sorokin Devexperts GmbH
IN
THE SCENE ASK THE EXPERTS P 19-22
ASK ANDREW!
Interview with Andrew Anastasiou
THE YACHT CLUB Tradeworks Event
P 34-39
HOSTED BY Director of Global Sales Graham Moss
EDITOR'S NOTE
View from the top s summer comes and we look
A forward to some time on the
beach to decompress, we have an issue which you can read whilst sipping on a cocktail in the comfort of your sun lounger. We were happy to partake in a few cocktails and ice cold beverages at our event we hosted with Tradeworks at the prestigious Yacht Club in Limassol marina. We will be looking to host some more of these functions in the future so stay tuned for more info. In this month’s issue we spent time with one of the bedrocks of the Limassol retail Forex scene, Nicholas Shamtanis from Easy Markets. We met up to discuss the past, the present and the future of their exciting brand. I was lucky enough to speak with one of my favorite journalists, the GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
esteemed managing editor Maria Nikolova from the leading FX news website Finance Feeds. We chewed the fat over how she keeps up her huge work ethic and producing amazing solid content for a world leading news website. We achieved marketing nirvana and improved my weak knowledge with the creative director and all round Guru Charlotte Day from Contentworks Agency. Spending 10 minutes with an industry titan is always fun and gives us great insight for us all to read and perhaps help us amend a current strategy we are running. In my day job of helping clients with liquidity, for a startup it is paramount to have a stable solution to make their launch as effortless as possible. We had a chance to meet with Andrew Anastasiou who plays a key role in brokerage formation. Being a titan of P2
the industry in helping both startups and mature companies establish a solid banking solution which can stand the test of time is always worth a read. Stalwart of the institutional tech Evgeny Sorokin takes time to tell us about his new venture as Head of R&D at Devexperts. Having known Evgeny for several years, it is always good to speak with someone who has staggering technical knowledge for institutional solutions. We have another great insight from Jonathan Baumgart giving us tips on how an outsourced IT help desk can save you both time and money for your business,
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A GAME CHANGER? Contact us to be featured in an upcoming issue
Ludovic Vuillier from Live Rate Feeds who I consider to be the industries go to man for the most reliable and stable diamond price feed, gives budding entrepreneurs an idea of the challenges that can be faced when presenting a new product and how to overcome them both effortlessly and elegantly. Finally, I was privileged to write in Finance Feeds regarding big data and how we should embrace it to improve our bottom line. I believe that if you can harness it correctly it really can work as part of your plan to maximize the data that you have generated from your previous efforts. Just to let you know, that we always love to hear people stories, so feel free to contact us. It is important for you to know that everyone of us are game changers in our own way. Our door is always open to listen to your journey. Until next time, lets change the game together! EDITOR IN CHIEF | PAUL ORFORD
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
info@gchangersmag.com www.gchangersmag.com
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INTERVIEW
IN THE NICK OF TIME Interview with Nicolas Shamtanis Chief Sales and Retention Officer
Q I think it is best to start by giving some background to the readers. I think it is fair to say that you have seen a lot in your 10 years at Easy Markets. In this industry, that is an incredibly long time in one brokerage. What path led you to EM and how do you keep yourself fresh after a decade in service? A What led me to EM was a combination of luck, connections and frustration on the career path I was in as it was a misfit for my personality. I still remember to this day when I announced to my family and friends that I was leaving a company I was working for the last 5 months to pursue a career in this fresh industry called Forex. As it was a new thing at the time in Cyprus, almost all with the exception of 1 person tried to make me stick to the path I was in. They thought that becoming a “dealer” in an online FX platform meant I would be exchanging currencies to the unsuspecting tourists in Limassol, or that online gold trading meant I would be negotiating prices for 18 and 24 karat gold chains in shady pawn shops. Little did they know that it was the beginning of an industry that would flourish, not only in Cyprus, but worldwide.
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
I have always had a passion for speculating and a passion for connecting with people. So starting my career as a sales-trader (or dealer) was a great match of the job description with my strengths and passion. I remember that I used to compare myself to a child locked in a chocolate factory. What keeps me fresh is a combination of a few things, but can be summed up as just trying to be a better person than what I was yesterday. Physically / mentally and professionally. Being physically active is a must to keep one’s focus in this industry. I find it as the best way to unload stress and regenerate your batteries. Otherwise the stress you endure from the markets, the competition, the clients and everything else can really take a toll on your energy levels. P4
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Secondly, and on a mental level, I try to find the time to read as much as I can in order to apply what I learned into the business context. I find the process of discovering new things and applying it in a creative way as extremely motivating.
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I try to find the time to read as much as I can in order to apply what I learned into the business context.
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Lastly, what keeps me fresh is my competitive nature and its desire to see easyMarkets where it belongs. As high as possible. I don’t find it satisfying being number 1. I find the hustle of trying to reach number 1 as the most exciting part of the journey. Q Between yourself, Windsor Brokers and FX Pro, you have been the mainstays of the industry since the beginning of the industry in Cyprus. Can you describe how it was in the early days for your brand? A It surely was much easier getting business in the early days! We used to be only a handful of brokers out there, so clients were lining up to join us, despite spreads being as high as 10 pips on major currency pairs. No one anticipated that the FX industry and Cyprus would grow to the extend it did in its recent years. I still remember when FxPro launched their website where my initial reaction was skepticism. I didn’t like it. I didn’t think clients would either. But they evolved and succeeded in gaining more market share. This gave me a lesson at that time. Never underestimate the competition. Never settle just because you are on top as the hardest thing in business is not rising to the top, but staying there. You have to be constantly evolving and adapting to the competitive landscape. Same with Windsor Brokers.
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
They have decided to focus on localization. At the end of the day everything can work out if you are focused and optimize your offering to appeal to the target market. Q With a constantly evolving business environment, has it been a challenge to keep a big brands like yours relevant? A Strategically, we recognize that most brokers out there choose to compete on Cost and Technology. While it certainly pays off for some brokers, we choose to compete on Differentiation. We do realize that we might not satisfy the needs of everyone out there, but at the same time we are very good at attracting and keeping clients who seek what we have and what others aren’t able to offer. For example, we are one of the very few brokers that offer no slippage, fixed spreads and a Free Guaranteed stop loss. Additionally, we are the only company that allows you to cancel losing trades, 60 minutes after having enter a trade. This and other differentiators that are in the works ensure that we will always appeal to a certain segment and be relevant, without having to enter Price wars. One of the biggest decisions a company has to make is not only what clients it will target, but also what clients they will not. By excluding certain client segments, it helps a company stay focused and helps it to continue delivering what it promises. That being said, while being different gets you noticed, being relevant gets you business, so we do try to adapt as much as possible to client needs without straying away from our Core Strategy. Q There are a lot of regulatory changes coming our way, as a forward thinking company do you feel prepared for these? As a company, one of your values has been respect to our customers, the industry,
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the competition and generally the environment we operate in. So by default, we have always been operating in a way that fell within the most common best practices. As the competition grew, gaining more market share became very much more difficult and more expensive in a short period of time. Since it was also a relatively new industry, the lack of established boundaries also welcomed a lack of respect for them. Therefore, we have seen a lot of companies that deviated from an ethical way of doing business in effort to make short term profits. Had this continued, it would threaten the industry as a whole. We could therefore foresee in advance that this would result in some necessary changes in order to safeguard the interests of the whole industry. We welcome all new regulations that have the best interest and protection of the client at heart. We welcome also all regulations that will bring greater transparency to the industry. So yes, we do feel prepared for these new regulations and are looking forward to competing in an environment where every company will be forced to compete within the same boundaries. Q Could you give any tips to any aspiring start up brokerages? A Get a competitive advantage. If you don’t have one, Don’t bother competing. The market is saturated with many of the same brokers who offer the same thing. It doesn’t have to be your product or costs; it can be even something as simple as the look of your homepage or the way you position your brand through your messaging. Hire Slow and Fire Fast. And when you do hire, get only “A” people even if they cost more. Once you get a good team, you need to put the right people on the right seat and continually nurture them. It is
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
amazing that companies might spend 50% of their monthly expenses on marketing and salaries, but will spend less than 0.5% on developing their talent. You only get results through people. Invest in them and keep them by creating a good environment to work in. Getting the right people in the right position is sometimes more important than a right strategy. Understand that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Many companies that tried the get rich quick path, are now out of business or on their way to it. Stay focused, stay relevant, be humble and take a baby step approach to growing. Adopt to the environment and not vice versa and be swift to take advantage of opportunities. Invest in Your Brand and Protect it by all means. This means monitoring your employee’s behaviour, monitoring online forums, affiliates, and generally every touchpoint. Every positive experience of the client with your brand, whether it’s a banner, the homepage or a simple conversation with your, brand is a Deposit in the bank. At the same time, every negative interaction with your brand is a withdrawal from the Bank. It takes years to build a “Brand Bank”, but only hours to destroy it. It’s your most valuable asset as that’s what attracts the customers. Put your client first. None of the above matters if you don’t keep clients happy and do not offer something that they value. Once you onboard them – put special focus on retaining them. My experience has shown me that retention is as equal or even more important than acquisition. The importance of a Business Intelligence system that will monitor the different life cycles of the customer and provide you with proactive insights cannot be more stressed.
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INTERVIEW
SUPERwoman MARIA NIKOLOVA Managing Editor Finance Feeds Q So here is the first question where I
use the page 1 from the text book of journalism 101. How did you start in journalism and end up coming to this industry?
A I spent a big portion of my childhood
in a small town and I was in the habit of writing stories and sending them to newspapers and magazines that were the sole means of communication with the outside world. I got my first article published in a teenage weekly newspaper when I was 12 years old. Since then, I have been engaged in media in one way or another – be it radio or university magazine editing. I landed in the Forex industry because
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
of oranges. It was in February and it was an incredibly cold winter in Bulgaria – my family was running out of money after a fight with debt collectors, my dad's cancer surgery and my personal clash with the EU authorities over a corrupted university exchange program. I was invited for a job interview at a highly modern office of a Forex company and I noticed a bowl full of oranges on the table. I was literally starving and I asked “Are these oranges real? Can anyone have an orange?”. I was amazed that employees get such a treatment. On my way back from the interview, I had to walk home because I did not have the money for a bus ticket. All I could think of were the oranges and how I would respect this job if I get it. Well, I got it. My first assignment was to review Forex trading robots and that fitted well with my AI background P8
thanks to my Cognitive Science studies. So, I stayed in the Forex industry.
seeking some immediate monetary gain from it.
Q In my opinion you are in the select
Q I personally believe that it can
band of knowledgeable journalists in the industry who are able to explain complex ideas in a succinct and informative way. Is there a model that you work on to achieve this? A Thank you very much for the kind
words (that I don't deserve at all). In terms of style, I am a fan of Lucy Kellaway. Concerning practical know-how, I look up to my superiors at work – editors, managers, CEOs. Although I often argue with them, I also learn a lot from them.
enhance the way in which we move capital and enhance the development of contracts for all parties concerned. In your geographical region I believe it can help as they are no longer going to be using outdated means to carry this out. What are your thoughts?
Q As someone who has an incredible
understanding of the brave new world of Blockchain technology, I know it is maybe an impossible question, but how do you see this evolving in the near term? A I've always been skeptical about
bitcoin. My friends know me for advising them to stay away from it – I simply don't think that bitcoin is made for trading. It is a crypto currency and to understand it, one has to mine it. This is my opinion. I am a less skeptical with regard to blockchain than I am with regard to bitcoin. That is because I see a conservative and gradual adoption of DLT by certain financial institutions, like banks. This adoption is done the right way – by co-operating with technology companies and by conducting long and detailed tests, as well as identifying potential risks. I don't have forecasts about blockchain but I have my hopes. I hope that the focus will be on the study of the technology side of the crypto world, rather than on
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
“My geographical region” has serious problems to tackle – the gravest one is widespread corruption, which prevents the money from taxes to go where it has to go. If blockchain and bitcoin can help overcome this, then, yes, the public (myself include) will applaud these new technologies. Q How do you generate so much
information everyday. I find it hard enough doing 1 article every couple of weeks! The technical reason for me being able to generate a great amount of content is one of my first jobs – I used to work at an information agency. We had a minimum quota of 20 articles per shift
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(6-8 hours). Sometimes, the managers required the news desk to deliver an article every five minutes. After that experience, content quantity is rarely a problem for me.
My area of expertise is ancient Greek philosophy, so I would have probably bombarded Plato with questions around his dialogue “Critias”. The latter tells the story of Atlantis but ends abruptly and we still do not know the reason for that. So, I would be curious to know whether there is anything truthful behind the story and whether Atlantis really existed. Another question I'd ask Plato is whether Socrates indeed took the poison or he'd been rescued by his friends.
Productivity depends on the type of article one has to write. The so called “industry news” take less time to prepare and write. Interviews, inside views, and in-depth analytical pieces take from weeks to months to complete. All types of media, I believe, have to solve the riddle of how to deliver a sufficient quantity of content every day without focusing too much on the “industry news”. Posting only interviews and analysis, however, may result in gaps in coverage and weeks in a row without any articles being published. The key is to find the balance and not to deprive the reader of any type of content. Q We often have random conversations about various philosophical concepts, is there a philosopher you would like to interview and what would you ask him?
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
My most recent academic research is somewhat outside of philosophy – it is in the area of cognitive psychology and involuntary memory, in particular. So, I would have probably interviewed Frederic Bartlett or Richard Gregory. The questions would have concerned the (lack of) certainty of perception and memory. I've been trying to find an area of memory that cannot be manipulated and I would have appreciated their view on the matter. But it is the habit of philosophers to ask questions rather than to give answers, so I am not sure philosophers are the best choice of people to interview.
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INTERVIEW
MAKE YOUR CONTENT WORK Interview with Charlotte Day Creative Director of Contentworks Agency
Q You have an enviable CV working
for some big names such as easyMarkets and FXTM, how did the path begin for you 10 years ago? Thank you, well this is a good story! I’ve always been passionate about writing and was beginning to pursue my career as a guest writer for a number of high profile online spots such as AgoraPulse and Hubstaff. I also established my online blog www.charlisays.com where I provide content and social media marketing insights. When it was suggested that I would be a great candidate for FX marketing I was pretty horrified. I was never interested in the financial markets and envisaged it all being pretty dull (which it can be). However, starting out as a freelance writer can be tough financially and you know, forex salaries are acceptable so I began as a writer progressing to Head of Global Social Media at FXTM and Head of Content Marketing at easy-forex, now easyMarkets. I discovered that the industry doesn’t need to be dull at all, it just takes the right people with the right marketing skills to turn it into something exciting. In fact, coming from a non-finance, content marketing background enabled me to introduce a human element to forex content management. I now have a good knowledge of forex but have managed to stay sane and retain my creative spirit so I’m in a great place! Q Do you think that working in the
marketing environment has helped you with that industry not being net dependent so much back then. Are there lessons that you have carried forward with you that newer entrants to your market may not have?
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
Ok let’s not go back to the pre-net days because I was still in school and quite happy drawing horses with Microsoft Paint! Actually, when I began in FX, social media marketing had just begun and this is where I combined my content marketing skills with the world of social media. Great social media marketing requires a great content marketer so I was instantly smitten, found my niche and began experimenting with different techniques long before it became fashionable. In fact, I was once even asked by a well-known broker to present a PowerPoint to the board on social media and whether forex brokers should use it. It took me another six months to convince them that posting 50 trading charts per day on Facebook wasn’t ok. True story. Q You became the creative director at
Contentworks Agency. Why did you leave the safe world of FX with big budgets to take this path?
That’s an interesting question and one which I would answer with another. Is the forex world really that safe? Each day we read of brokers losing licences, dismissing staff, cutting salaries and closing offices. We also read of harder and tighter restrictions on the industry which have left many feeling that the FX bubble may burst very soon. However, the reason myself and my co-director Niki, established Contentworks is because we felt we could do better. So much better. There comes a point as Head of Content in a brokerage where you are scraping the ceiling and there are no new challenges to take you forward. With a combined 20 years of forex experience, tons of hands on social media and content marketing experience and plenty of P 12
industry contacts, we wanted to break out of the mould and do something really awesome. Yes, there are risks associated with being a start-up but we are ready for them. Someone once said you should never be the smartest person in the room as this can lead to complacency. Always challenge yourself to do greater things. Q People who are not 'in the know'
often dismiss content marketing. Why should they do this at their peril? People who should be “in the know” dismiss it too! Some of the comments I have encountered during my years in forex would make any content marketer cringe. “Can’t you just copy *competitors* content?”, “We don’t need content marketing, we have a website” or my personal favourite “we don’t need Twitter, we are not in Silicon Valley”. Actually, most of them aren’t laughing anymore because the bonus gravy train has ground to a halt and additional CySEC and MiFID regulations have meant that brokers need to rethink their entire content and affiliate marketing strategies. Many brokers will state that they welcome the changes as they will make the industry more transparent, regulated and safe for clients but I think this is only a half truth. Many are also quietly worried about how they will bring in the same big business under such tight regulations. Content marketing engages audiences on social media and email, links brokers with key industry influencers, opens doors for PR and media opportunities, forms the basis of great video marketing and drives traffic to websites. Yes, they may choose to ignore it but certainly at their own peril.
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Q There is a change in the landscape
being delivered for FX brokerages via regulations and acquiring clients via introducing parties, how could your services fill that gap? The latest CySEC requirements have stated that brokers will now be responsible for the content and statements produced by their affiliates. Let’s just take a minute to understand how huge that is for the big brokers, many of whom rely heavily on their affiliates to bring in the dollars. As a seasoned FX content marketer, I agree with CySEC’s decision. The affiliates have been running wild for years. Writing their own content, making non-compliant promises of wealth, offering big wins and inaccurate education. Contentworks has recently launched managed affiliate content bundles to solve the problem for brokers who need to keep their affiliate marketing operations working effectively. Our flexible content bundles for affiliates offer unique text covering broker profiles and USPs, market analysis, blog pieces, newsletters and even eBooks and landing pages. Whilst we are not compliance officers, we do understand the CySEC requirements. This means that the broker’s own compliance officer can approve the content thereby creating a compliant paper trail and the affiliates can happily go ahead and use it. Q With a multitude of agencies out
there what separates you from the herd?
Yes, there are lots of marketing agencies out there many of which we have previously worked with. Contentworks is different because our team specialises in content P 13
IS YOUR WEBSITE CONTENT GETTING CRAWLED?
www.contentworks.agency
marketing predominantly for the finance and tech sector. That’s because we have extensive experience in these fields and understand the requirements of the industries. We provide unique market analysis, website content, compliance friendly social media management, whitepapers and industry specific influencer marketing. We don’t try to compete with the “one stop shop” marketing agencies who offer PPC and web development because that’s not where our team’s expertise lies. We focus on key KPIs that our target industries care about. Getting websites crawled by providing SEO friendly text, attracting and engaging potential clients on social media, boosting web traffic and improving branding and PR. We offer fully managed organic content marketing solutions which slot into your marketing strategy and take the stress out of sourcing regular high quality content. Q The bottom line being the most
important thing in any business, are you finding that many companies are now outsourcing? Yes, lots of companies are now very open to outsourcing if they find an agency that can provide solutions to match their needs. In today’s digital age many big brands are working with outsourced agencies in order to fulfil their business needs without any issues. They also understand that a good agency can be more cost effective than opening several internal permanent positions. As an example, our Rockstar solution includes full social media and content marketing management at a fraction of the cost of hiring and resourcing inhouse. Outsourcing is a lot to do with trust. The brands we work with appreciate our industry GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
specific expertise and reputation and so generally they don’t have any reservations about engaging our services. Q Any tips for aspiring content writers?
Absolutely, Oh I have so many tips! I have been writing professionally for over 10 years and whilst I am now the guest author in some high-profile spots I didn’t start out that way. As a writer, you have to work hard to get your articles noticed and it can take several years of consistent blogging before you will start to see any traction. Create your own blog and write unique content at least once a week. Once you have done that, establish an author profile and start sending unique articles to 3rd party sites for publication. Be prepared for rejections and criticism. the path of a writer is filled with them! It’s also important to have a strong social media presence from which you can promote your work, network with influencers and attract more opportunities. Once you’ve been writing consistently for a few years and of course, if you’re good, then you will start to be approached for work. When that happens, send your CV to Contentworks and let’s talk! CONTENTWORKS AGENCY DELIVERS SMART CONTENT MARKETING SOLUTIONS FOR THE FINANCE, TECH AND LIFESTYLE SECTORS. Attract. Engage. Succeed. www.contentworks.agency
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INTERVIEW
VORSPRUNG DURCH TECHNIK! Interview with Evgeny Sorokin Head of R&D Devexperts GmbH Q To begin the interview, please offer us some insight into how your journey began working in the fintech industry? A I first became interested in FX trading, when the subject was introduced to me as a student. It fascinated me how a person could instantly convert their decisions and wisdom into a monetary form. Early on in my career, I was given the opportunity to deliver software solutions for the telecom, cartography, freight, accounting, sales and marketing sectors. This led to my first job working in the fintech industry, following an invitation to join a development team in sunny Cyprus to launch a brand new trading platform called cTrader. Q I believe this is when we first met. What was your first experience of developing a trading platform? A It was an interesting experience. Collaborating closely with my team we worked with enormous enthusiasm on cTrader. Figuratively speaking, it felt like we were delivering an iPhone in the shape of a
trading platform to the world of retail FX. After that I went on to explore the industry further and ran a liquidity aggregation and bridge provider called Quotix. A FxPro was one of the first clients of Quotix. After successful implementation, Q With Quotix becoming a success, you must FxPro decided to acquire the company have been incredibly happy when FxPro made and use Quotix technology to expand the decision to buy the company. Did anything change for you under new ownership? their institutional business. We were taken under the wing of a strong company, and also given the chance to experience the brokerage business from the inside. Cooperation improved which ultimately helped facilitate product development. However, we have been transformed from a neutral technology provider to an auxiliary IT department, with the focus on the tasks of the only broker. That was different from my vision. I wanted to join an independent software house to be at the forefront. A During my first years in fintech I have focused mainly on FX software solutions, and been relatively Q You have now taken on a new successful in this field. In 2012 at one of the iFX role at the fintech behemoth EXPOs I met Devexperts. In addition to FX, Devexperts Devexperts. What was it that solutions also include futures, stocks, options and attracted you to their company? commodity trading as well as market data services. I was impressed, as most technology providers only appeared to be able to master one trading platform and, yet, here was Devexperts team running a dozen platforms simultaneously. Over a number of years, I kept meeting key members of the Devexperts team at various events, where we would naturally discuss industry insights. It seemed clear we were curious about each others successes. We had some mutual clients where Quotix and Devexperts implemented their solutions elbow-to-elbow. My team installed the MT4 bridge and aggregator and Devexperts delivered their dxTrade platform. We also had some potential leads where partnership was a reasonable choice, for example the development of a cryptocurrency trading infrastructure in Japan. All of these projects brought us closer together, and joining Devexperts team eventually seemed like the natural choice. A Devexperts is perhaps the biggest company with the only focus on Q Devexperts have an enviable list of clients software for capital markets. Its size who use their products such as GAIN, Monex and CFH. Why do you feel that your product is allows us take on the high value so sought after by this sector of the market? projects, which other vendors are less equipped to deal with. Our knowledge helps us to avoid mistakes that are commonly made by other vendors. Our team has over 15 years experience, it has faced multiple challenges and successfully delivered a considerable number of trading platforms. The direction Devexperts has chosen has enabled it to act as a springboard for brokerage businesses with serious intentions. Many brokers underestimate the power of the software, which can operate as a core element to their business and be tailored specifically for their environment. In general, Devexperts is being sought after by companies, who understand that a trading platform in a brokerage business plays the same important role as amazon.com for Amazon Inc.
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Q What will Devexperts focus on for the second half of the year?
A One major opportunity that we see is to expand solutions for wealth management ďŹ rms. There is an unfulďŹ lled demand for portfolio-based investment and other investments based on shared capital. We see a lot of opportunities in setting up software solutions to address these needs and are already working on several projects. Our aim is to increase the number of such projects in our portfolio. There is also noticeable interest in the digital currency area. People are seeking to trade cryptocurrency, crypto exchanges are looking to increase their spot trading volumes, and brokers are eager to offer different volatile instruments such as spot, CFDs and derivatives on crypto currencies. Whether clients approach us to set up their own crypto exchanges, or integrate liquidity from third party exchanges to their own trading platform, Devexperts can bring value by leveraging its long-lasting experience and solid technology for broker-dealers, exchanges and market makers. The other point in our strategic development plan is geographical expansion. We are working closely with a Japanese software provider in order to localize dxTrade to make it conformant with Japanese regulators and incorporate speciďŹ c business logic such as Shinyo, which is margin trading according to Japanese rules. After a few successful installations in Turkey, we are also planning to fortify our position there. We would like to redevelop the market even further and provide the most convenient lightweight investment tool available for retail investors.
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THE EXPERTS
ASK Andrew! Interview with Andrew Anastasiou from Stasi Capital
Hi there! I’m Andrew and I am the owner and founder of Stasi Capital Ltd and also the Director of Infinitus Consultants. I personally have a varied background and have always been noted for my Entrepreneurial attitude and my drive to do my best. After coming to Cyprus from London, I started my journey in to a career in corporate services and banking. As a company, we are very experienced in Banking and Company Incorporation and we have our main headquarters in Larnaca, with a presence in the UK, Latvia and the Czech Republic. Our companies specialize in providing corporate consultancy services to the Forex and Binary Industry as well as offering services to Gaming, Online Gambling and the Bitcoin Industry. Although we offer a wide range of services, our main standpoint is advising and offering banking solutions to our clients, payment services, and company incorporation / licensing. Through the Game Changers Magazine and this Q&A article I want to take the opportunity to answer some of the most frequent and pressing questions we are asked not only by start-up Brokerages, but Brokerages who are already established in EU but want to start Offshore Brokerages also. So, let’s start! P 19
Q Andrew, I want to start an Offshore Brokerage but I have no idea where to start! What do I do? What jurisdiction should I choose? What are the pros and cons? A Well, as always any questions that are open ended require more than a single answer but in such cases I always ask, what are your plans for the Brokerage? As a professional I will always push for a Brokerage to remain within the EU for their licensing with obvious choices being CySEC or FCA. However, many reasons for clients wishing to start Offshore Brokerages is the scope of their markets. And depending on the markets the client wishes to “hit”, the answers will pretty much be sitting there. Let’s take for example a client wishing to target Asia, the best jurisdiction would be Labuan in terms of trust and licensing abilities. Again however, we need to assume the client has adequate start-up funds for this… If the client wants to keep the costs down as much as possible then we would suggest they start with an SVG (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines) incorporation as currently this is one the simplest and most respected Offshore Jurisdictions. An Offshore Brokerage set up in SVG will also allow our clients to target markets such as LatAm and in some cases Africa. With all of this in mind though, I always suggest potential Brokers to get in touch so that we can discuss things together and get the best solutions put in place, and of course we can set up everything for you from licensing/incorporation to full spectrum support to get you up and running! GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
Q Once my Brokerage is set-up, what do I do next? What about payment services? Banking?! A We know the pitfalls and the issues when it comes to finding banking solutions for Offshore Brokerages, we have seen it time and time again and we have also seen it break potentially game changing Brokerages. So, with this we have climbed over mountains and punched through walls to ensure our clients are able to find the solutions they want and need. We are connected with over 22 international banks which not only trust us, but are welcoming to any clients we put through. The reason for this is our knowledge in the banking sector as well as our trusted compliance procedures. Our banking partners know that any clients we put through we believe in, as over time we have built up a strong presence with our partners in a way where they feel they work with us, and we feel the same. The main issues any Offshore Brokerage will find is that Banking Institutions will not even review their applications, for us this was never acceptable. As a company we have landed bank accounts for companies incorporated in the Marshall Islands and SVG, companies regulated in BVI, Vanuatu and Belize and also had these accounts opened without the dreaded “physical presence” required by most EU banks. Please do note however, they we won’t just work with “anyone”. As a company, we hold our clients names with our partners and we need to know that our clients are working with integrity, passion and within the boundaries of the laws and procedures set out by the authorities in their respective jurisdictions. P 20
Experts in Global Banking From Company Incorporation to Banking Solutions MAKE US YOUR PARTNERS
CONTACT US +357 24 828 624 | +357 99 822 911 info@stasicapital.com
www.stasicapital.com
As for Payment Services, this is where the fun begins. We are partners with 5 major Payment Service Providers and we usually are able to get our clients special rates in order for them to start trading efficiently and hopefully succeed.
touch and we will talk you through it. If you are literally at the very beginning of your plans to become a Brokerage then we will certainly be able to assist from the very beginning, and ensure you are made aware of the regulations, procedures and pitfalls associated.
For Offshore Brokerages it can be difficult to find payment solutions for the company and not only in terms of the Payment Service Provider but also for the rate. We have a specialist procedure which you will need to contact us for in order for us to get the best provider for you and this depends on many factors. As a consultancy firm, we will handle all of the paperwork and applications for you as well as checking your KYC is all in place before sending off to the providers we have a both agreed are suitable.
Again, we would like all of our clients to know that we do our utmost to assist in any situations and also to get you out of “trouble” should you find yourself struggling in any way. But, we also know the laws and we urge you to research them too. At no point will we advise on ways to “get around” a regulation, how to operate illegally and/or how to market your services in countries which it will be seen as breaking the law.
The reason we do this for you is we know the road is long and winding with such cases and we can find the best shortcuts in order to find you the solutions and ensure the provider is comfortable serving you as a client. I would urge you to get in touch for us to discuss this, however. Q So, you have incorporated/licensed our Brokerages, you found us the best banking solutions and our Payment Service Providers are ready for us and we have integrated. What now Andrew? A Well, now you are pretty much all set! Our main barriers for our clients are Banking and Payment Services, and we have all of this covered. If you have already incorporated/licensed your company and you just need the solutions for payments and basic operations of your company just get in GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
Thank you all for taking the time to read this article and I hope I Have answered your questions with as much detail as I can without knowing your case 100%! If you wish to get in touch you can visit our website here: www.stasicapital.com You can find me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ andrewanastasioucyprus/ You can email us here: andrew@stasicapital.com andrew@infinitus-consultants.com You can call us here: +357 99 822 911 +357 24 828 624 P 22
INTERVIEW
BUSINESS
with Baumgart INTERVIEW WITH CEO Jonathan Baumgart from Atomiq Consulting Q Jonathan, tell us a little about the core services offered at Atomiq Consulting. A One of the flagship services offered by Atomiq Consulting is our IT Help Desk. We work with brokers around the globe by helping them to configure and optimize their MT4, bridge, and hosting ecosystem. Q What type of value does this service offer? A We’ve found is that skilled technicians who understand forex are difficult to find. Time is money as the saying goes, which is where our service has tremendous value. Imagine how long it takes to hire a qualified technician: job ads, paperwork, recruitment fairs, interviews, etc. Once a contract is signed and payment posted, we start our work. Q Isn’t this something most brokers can manage on their own? AI think it helps to consider what would happen if you took a programmer/developer and appointed them head of sales. It would be an uphill battle. In the same fashion, brokers who understand the sales end of the business but aren’t technically minded will face similar struggles. Our solution lets them focus on their core strength of growing the business while we handle the IT side. Q Any tips for those looking to obtain their license? A Before jumping from a white label to a full on license, you really need to take the time to map out how you’d like your offering to look, which is something we can help you with. Things like hosting, bridges, VPS, and product settings are now your responsibility. The time spent thinking this over can save countless hours and translate to reduced costs down the road. Q What’s are a couple examples of some challenging problems your team has tackled? A CFDs! They are far more challenging to configure due to the variables you don’t find with FX pairs: break times, contract sizes, margins, and pip values to name a few. We’ve literally spent weeks fixing misconfigurations. Exotic deposit currencies are another tricky issue to handle. These present many configuration challenges that require experience to set up correctly, otherwise many things can go wrong.
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INTERVIEW
Diamond Geezer! Interview with Ludovic Vuillier CEO from LiveRates Feeds
It’s been 3 months since we’ve unveiled the tradable diamond index. I feel as though I’ve lived a lifetime during these three months. Calls have been had with so many different types of financial institutions - from small new WL, to large international banks. I admit that when I first started I thought it was the small brokers who would show the most interest in the beginning and that only later the large institutions, the financial behemoths, would join. I feel blessed to see that it is not so. From day one, everyone has shown an interest including the biggest of the big. As anyone who knows me knows, my background is sales and negotiations. An age old habit I have is to write down every objection that comes my way and then to figure out a thousand and one ways to answer it. Some of the objections forced us to become better and I am thankful for them. Other objections taught me more about the way many people see the industry and for that too I am thankful as it allowed me to better work on the offering and its presentation. The first companies I contacted were the smaller brokers. Here are the things I heard from them and how we dealt with it. OBJECTION: Your fees are too high. ANSWER: Really? 30 USD per Million for a brand new exotic. Again let’s compare if we must. Go to a liquidity provider and ask them for the cost of the EURUSD. You may be able to get it down to 10 USD/ Million if you do a lot of volume. May. But here’s the kicker. The cost for the EURUSD has to be low. Because there are MANY LPs GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
for it, so they have plenty of competition and so do you as a broker. Meaning they need to keep the price low enough for you to be able to tack on your margin and still be competitive. So again comparing apples to cars. OBJECTION: It’s not yet popular. ANSWER: Of course it isn’t. This has not existed until NOW. Early adopters are the ones who benefit the most from anything new. Take for example the ones who got bitcoins for just a few cents when it first came out. Without having to wait until it reached it’s high of $2700 they still made a killing. A friend of mine bought 10 bitcoins when they were about $10 each and sold them over the years for a profit of close to $13,000. Look at the FX brokers who started when FX was still new to retail. It was easier for them to expand and continue to grow compared to new brokers who have to fight harder to get a piece of the market. OBJECTION: The spread is too big. ANSWER: It is an exotic. If you’re going to compare it to the EURUSD then that is like comparing an apple to a car. There is no comparison. Let’s use another commodity as an example. A well known commodity whose daily trading volume is around 250 BIL USD. Gold. The spread on gold changes throughout the day as we move from one session to another (from Tokyo to London to New York. Do you know what the spread is for the XAUUSD? Based on what’s going on in the market it goes from 1 pip all the way up to 44 pips. And that is with 250 BIL USD traded every single day! When I spoke with the larger institutions P 26
these objections never came up. On the one hand I was relieved of this since it showed me that the institutions with decades of experience in the field saw that we built something good, with a lot of potential and at a very good price. The objections I got from them forced us to build something better. Their one and only objection was regarding the Clearing and Settlement. Larger institutions requested that we outsource that to a specialized entity in a very well regulated jurisdiction. And we did just that. It took us time but we did it. Two things that everyone asked us with more or less concern was:
NOW LET ME SHARE WITH YOU WHY YOU SHOULD ADD THE IDXUSD TO YOUR OFFERING: 1 . Because it’s something new with a lot of potential 2
It’s an untapped market that will only grow with time
3
As with everything, it’s the ones who take it on early that will get the most market share
4
The big financial institutions are adding it, are you sure you want to let them have more of an edge than they already have?
5
It’s built for you to customize the offering to your needs
6
An entire ecosystem is being built around it
1) How easy it is to connect? So let me reassure you - it is seamless. As they say in the movies, get your (tech) guys talk to my (tech) guys and they’ll see we’ve made the process seamless. 2) My sales team won’t know how to promote it. That’s why we offer our help. For years I was a sales advisor to companies. I still am. I’m still a partner in call centers, some of them related to the industry. I will help your sales teams learn how to promote this to their clients. You will receive my help with this.
7
One day in the not too far off distance, clients will ask you if you have it and if you don’t - your competitors will have the advantage.
Do you really want to give your competitors an advantage that is so easy to mitigate?
It has been one heck of an experience. In these three months I have learned so much and it was incredible! I’ve shared with you some of the objections and answers/ solutions.
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
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Welcome to a New Era in Trading
The World is Getting Smaller. Make Your World BIGGER.
admin@liveratesfeeds.com support@pk1coin.com www.liveratesfeeds.com
FINANCE FEEDS FEATURE
DONALD TRUMP & NIGEL FARAGE
CAN BOOST YOUR SALES! ARTICLE BY PAUL ORFORD FROM AMB PRIME FIRST FEATURED ON WWW.FINANCEFEEDS.COM POSTED ON 13 / JULY / 2017
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
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Have Forex marketing campaigns turned into vanilla affairs? AMB Prime’s Paul Orford offers an ironic and provocative insight into the matter. As many of my friends and colleagues know, I am often quite critical of various marketing campaigns from within our industry, which seem to be carried out without any real care or knowledge of what their end result is or who their message is targeted at. Much like a monkey with a machine gun, various marketing departments litter my inbox with emails showing me how my life can change with ‘7 must have indicators’, or how to achieve the path to enlightenment by following guidance on ‘how to becoming an expert trader’. I don’t mind receiving them as I see it as a nice reflection on how to conduct an email campaign from a bygone era. After the gold rush of football team sponsorship and the change in regulations regarding incentivizing the client to open a trading account, how will marketing departments fight to dominate the narrative. Instead of perhaps looking at what their competitors are doing and carrying out a copy and paste marketing strategy, a more intelligent way is to look at the techniques which are used into the ultimate sales and marketing sphere, the electoral campaign.
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
It is widely acknowledged that both Donald Trump and the Leave EU campaign had a message that many believed would be challenging not only to be listened to, moreover to be accepted by the public at large prior to the result being called. In fact with the majority of bookmakers offering overwhelming odds for the opposite outcome, should we not look more closely at how these victories were achieved for our own ends? If you are not aware of what big data is, it can be described as an extremely large data set that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends and associations especially relating to human behavior and interactions. Essentially this can be interpreted as to why Adwords sends me messages about why I should consume more goods and products from a specific vendor and type. My behavior has been tracked analyzed and refined to hone the message that I receive and for me as the active participant to act upon it. Although many political commentators argued both campaign messages were not getting across, by utilizing big data they were able to construct a message which had been devised by a team who understood how to use analytics, and how to transform the huge amount of data into a ‘coherent’ message. An example of this was Trumps team acknowledging in order to win specific regions they had to mention that he was going to bring back jobs in the coal industry as it is specific to a certain region. Moreover, when discussing what are the fears of the electorate, they will give the response and he then creates a message accordingly regarding building walls and sending back ‘bad dudes’.
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Further to this, the most poignant message of the Leave campaign was the large red bus stating that more money would be going to the NHS if you cast your vote for Leave. Furthermore, Nigel Farage’s faction was giving a very graphic ‘failing point’ image. These messages are not created by pure happenstance or on small scale focus groups of the past, but by the advanced utilization of big data and its interpretation and analysis as to what specific voters trigger points.
HOW DO THEY GET THE DATA? The modern successful electoral machine now employs large departments to calculate the data that is being received from the front line of canvassers. This is then packaged to become more specific and targeted message for the targeted region. Jim Messina who was the campaign director for the Obama campaign in 2012, outlined that they had a 12-person team carrying out the data analysis for the 2008 campaign, in 2012 they had 165. He argues that in the old days people were treated as a number, now we need to treat them as individual people. Moreover, he goes further and states that they knew the name of each of the 69 million people who voted for his candidate in the 2012 election with the advanced data analysis tools.
GAME CHANGERS | ISSUE #6
HOW CAN YOU GET THIS DATA? If you have a multi million dollar budget like many of the political parties and causes mentioned, many of them begin with Cambridge Analytica that specialize in big data and psychographics. Having played a prominent role in many recent campaigns on both sides of the Atlantic recently, from the extrapolated data they can help form a party or causes key arguments. Although some may argue that we can see this via current analytical tools, they do not really touch the surface when looking at what the client needs. Moreover, all they do is give us analysis on the questions we ask, rather than feedback upon what a client requires. This appears to be the wrong way around in generating a service that is of value to the end user. In an age where every electronic activity is monitored and a profile built, we are coming to the end of giving out a broad brush stroke message. Without these huge budgets you may think that all is lost, however this is not the case. By using very basic methods of retention and improving the likes and dislikes of a client, you can build up the same picture as the information received by the canvassing masses who knock on the doors of the voting public. They can give you feedback into what they want, as opposed to forcing what you offer you can tailor make the service and increase your rapport with the client. After all, which client would not like to have a specific service designed for them, rather than the usual vanilla affair that 90% of brokerages have. Remember we work in an industry where data is gold, why not make your brokerage a Fort Knox!
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IN
THE SCENE
BOTTOMS UP Tradeworks features Game Changers at their event We were proud to cohost our summer party in conjunction with Tradeworks at the Yacht Club in Limassol Marina. It was great evening with many laughs which we will look to repeat in the near future. Our fantastic MC for the night was Graham Moss, Director of Global Sales for Tradeworks, along with the fantastic George Agathangelou and effervescent Katy Parks. It was great that they had time to make a prerecorded speech from Mikael Breinhorst wishing us all a great evening. SkĂĽl Mikael!
Hosted By
Annita Yiallouri, Ekaterina Dementyeva & Annita Yiallouri
Graham Moss
Nicholas Shamtanis
Annita Yiallouri & Ekaterina Dementyeva
THE YACHT CLUB | LIMASSOL MARINA
Samer Darwish & Janet Kazaka
Graham Moss
George Agathangelou
THE YACHT CLUB | LIMASSOL MARINA
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ISSUE #6
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