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MetaQuotes to Change MetaTrader Web Terminal Addresses

MetaQuotes, a leading trading software provider, has announced the moving of old MetaTrader Web terminals from https://trade.mql5.com/trade to https://metatraderweb.app/trade.

MetaQuotes logo

Users can access the new web terminal through the WebTerminal section of the existing MetaQuotes website. However, it’s important to note that support for the MetaTrader 5 Web version will permanently end on August 1, 2023. On the other hand, MetaTrader 4 Web will continue to operate without interruption.

For users currently utilizing the old MetaTrader 5 Web terminal, MetaQuotes strongly advises requesting the new version of MetaTrader 5 WebTerminal from their respective brokers. The new web terminal offers improved functionality and efficiency, compatible with various platforms including Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android OS. Moreover, it can be accessed through any modern browser.

MetaQuotes emphasizes that all new technologies and services will only be available on the new web terminal. Therefore, users are encouraged to transition to the new version to take advantage of the latest features.

One notable change in the MetaTrader 5 Web Terminal is that it will allow connection exclusively to the specific broker based on domain linkage. This means that users will no longer need to search for their broker in the available list. Instead, they can simply enter their trading account login and password to access their trading platform.

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Swissquote Launches Crypto Exchange SQX

The crypto exchange maintains a centralized order book by sourcing liquidity from several hubs.

Its other competitors, like Dukascopy, are already offering wide crypto services.

crypto exchange

Swissquote announced the launch of its much-anticipated cryptocurrency exchange, which has been branded as SQX

The launch came after confirmation from a Swissquote executive late last year about the plans of starting a crypto exchange. However, the company missed the initial deadline for launching the crypto trading platform by June 2022.

SQX is a centralized crypto trading venue and, according to the official press release, it will enhance customers’ experience in the areas of “trading, execution and liquidity.”

It is maintaining a central order book by sourcing and aggregating liquidity from several liquidity hubs.

Swissquote’s CEO, Marc Bürki said: “Swissquote is at the forefront of innovation and was one of the first institutions in Europe with a banking license to offer cryptocurrency trading. The launch of our own crypto exchange is an important step forward in offering our customers deeper liquidity and faster execution.”

Indeed, Swissquote being a Switzerland-headquartered broker operates with a banking license, a mandatory regulation for Swiss brokers.

However, Swissquote is not the only brokerage in the country to jump into the cryptocurrency space. Rather, it has joined local competitors like Dukascopy to offer crypto products. Switzerland’s largest stock exchange, Six Swiss Exchange, has listed several crypto exchange-trades products over the years.

In its initial phase of the crypto exchange, it will offer Bancor Network (BNT). In addition, the company ensured the addition of other crypto assets which are already available on Swissquite to be added on the new crypto exchange.

“In terms of services for institutional clients, SQX also represents an increase in competitiveness when it comes to offering trading and custody services to other banks and brokers,” Bürki added.

Meanwhile, Swissquote reported a 23.1 percent yearly decline in its operating revenue for the first half of 2022 which came in at CHF 204.8 million. Moreover, its net revenue dropped by 24.4 percent. Interestingly, the company also witnessed a 69.2 percent drop in net crypto assets income in the period as the number reached CHF 19.5 million.

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EU Bans Crypto Payments from Russia

EU bans crypto services in Russia and it is one of several new ‘hard-hitting’ measures of the EU against Russia.

The bloc banned seven Russian banks from accessing SWIFT earlier in March

Crypto ban
Crypto ban

The European Union has imposed sanctions that forbid European crypto operations from providing virtually any cryptocurrency services to Russians. Russia will lose access to most of the cryptocurrency services in the European Union.

On September 6, the EU announced its eighth package of sanctions against Russia in response to its ongoing invasion and annexation of Ukraine.

The EU Council describes the new policy as “a full ban of the provision of… wallets, account or custody services to Russian persons and residents, regardless of the total value of those crypto-assets.”

A separate statement published by the European Commission indicates that related restrictions had been put in place before today, but that wallets holding less than €10,000 ($9,800) had been exempt from those sanctions.

Today’s announcement only names “crypto-asset wallets, accounts, or custody services” as services that cannot be offered to Russian users. However, it seems that crypto exchanges, brokerages, and payment services will be covered by the ban as account-based services.

The sanctions package also contains bans unrelated to cryptocurrency. Specifically, it aims to restrict Russian imports and exports, limit the movement of military equipment, and implement a price cap on Russian oil exports.

The EU Commission said that sanctions are “proving effective” in limiting Russia’s ability to manufacture and repair weapons. It also expressed its support for Ukraine.

Russia, for its part, has been attempting to lift its own restrictions on cryptocurrency usage. This week, Russia’s finance ministry announced plans to allow international cryptocurrency settlements for most industries. The country has been open to that possibility since at least May.

It is unclear whether today’s sanctions will limit those plans, as Russia may plan to transact in crypto outside of the EU.

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Spotware Sees a Spike in Demand for cTrader Amid MetaQuotes Delisting

Recently, Spotware Systems announced that the company is currently facing exploding demand for cTrader, especially from large brokers as remains the safest option in the market.

Spotware faces growing demand for cTrader
cTrader by Spotware Systems

Spotware Systems has recently announced that its flagship trading platform cTrader is facing a spiking demand. The increased demand especially comes from large brokers since cTrader has established itself as the safest trading platform in the market.

The demand for cTrader spiked amid the MetaQuotes delisting from iOS. The brokers are concerned about the situation that had popped up around MT4/MT5 as they risk losing customers to competitors offering alternative platforms, such as cTrader.

Spotware Systems is well known in the industry for its “traders first” approach and is one of the safest platforms in the market. Since the inception of cTrader, for more than 12 years, Spotware kicked out multiple bucket shop brokerage companies and companies accepting US clients.

The cTrader platform is designed to keep track of users activity to make it easy for traders and investors alike, each track amendment is recorded and marked separately. It was built to protect users by not allowing the “inject price” function and preventing scam brokers from stop-loss hunting or installing any plugins like “Virtual Dealer”.

“cTrader is hosted on Spotware’s infrastructure and only Spotware employees have access to it. Trade receipts with all necessary information about each trade, including but not limited to chronological events, slippage, and Level 2 market snapshot and execution times are stored and cannot be modified, ensuring trading transparency. All the above features make cTrader less appealing to brokers with malicious intentions.”

John Parnaby, The Head of Technical Support at Spotware

About cTrader

Founded in 2011, cTrader is a leading multi-asset forex and CFD trading platform developed by Spotware Systems, an award-winning financial technology provider based in Cyprus.

The platform is one-of-a-kind and doesn’t engage in fraud and prides itself on 100% transparency providing brokers with exceptional solutions while at the same time catering to the needs of traders.

cTrader offers quite a comprehensive and sophisticated range of tools, including a great variety of charts, over 70 pre-installed technical indicators, cTrader Automate Algo trading solution, Copy trading, Open API, etc.

For further information visit cTrader’s official website – ctrader.com or read their Wikipedia article.

Also, read our review article on 6 best brokers with cTrader.

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Pepperstone Adds Capitalize.ai Automated Trading and Analysis Platform

It was announced that Pepperstone adds Capitalize.ai to bring significant value to Pepperstone traders

Pepperstone Review(2022)️ Is Pepperstone Regulated or Scam☑️

Pepperstone has teamed up with Capitalise.ai to offer their traders a seamless, auto-trading experience in which clients can easily analyze, automate and execute their trading strategies without any coding knowledge, based on natural language processing (NLP).

The Forex and CFD broker has integrated the AI-driven auto-trading platform to faciliate its users’ entry into algo trading. The Capitalise.ai system will fully automate their trading strategies using free-style text input. Users will receive alerts and insights from the automation and analysis platform.

Pepperstone traders can use Capitalise.ai’s full suite of analytics and automated trading tools free of charge, including backtesting, loop strategies, smart notifications and more.

Pepperstone continues to deliver to the needs of professional traders

James Perry-Keene, Head of APAC & LATAM Strategic Partnerships, Pepperstone, said: “Our vision is to create a better way to trade for our clients and we continue to invest in trading technology that brings the world’s financial markets to astute, adventurous traders. Equipping our clients with advanced automation and analytics capabilities on our platform, is another example of how Pepperstone continues to deliver to the day-to-day needs of professional traders.”

Capitalise.ai has developed an outstanding platform that makes creating automated trading strategies a super-easy and smooth experience. They are number 1 for Overall Client Satisfaction in both the UK and Australian Investment Trends surveys and we believe that integrating Capitalise.ai into Pepperstone helps us continue to offer our clients the best quality service.

Amir Shiovich, Capitalise.ai CEO & Co-Founder: “2022 has been an incredible year in online trading, exceeding our expectations and spring boarding off a very impressive 2021. Pepperstone is a globally trusted and award-winning broker, and have a track record of putting client experiences ahead of everything else. We look forward to bringing significant value to Pepperstone traders and making a real, positive impact in their daily trading habits. We are excited to welcome them on board.”

Pepperstone clients now can easily create, analyze, and automate their trading scenarios while on the go, with no need for any coding or technical skills.

Capitalise.ai’s proprietary technology uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to turn simple English text entered by traders into custom algorithmic trading strategies.

Pepperstone has subsidiaries across the globe and is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySec), the Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB), the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and The Capital Markets Authority of Kenya (CMA).

Since 2021, Capitalise.ai has more than quadrupled its number of partnerships, usage scale and trading activity. The firm’s analytics and trading automation platform amplifies top-tier brokerage firms’ performance by offering a game changing trading experience for traders worldwide.

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Apple Removed MT4 and MT5 Trading Platforms from App Store

Last weekend, Apple removed MT4 and MT5 trading platforms from the App Store. The platforms are still available for Google PlayStore users.

Neither of the companies has commented the removal of the platforms.

apple removed mt4 and mt5
MetaQuotes

It is reported that MetaQuotes’ MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) – the biggest forex and contracts for differences (CFD) trading platforms – are removed from the App Store, the mobile store of Apple Inc.

The removal of MT4 and MT5 doesn’t seem to be affecting those iOS users who had already installed the apps on their devices. However, it is unlikely that these users will be able to download future updates and upgrades.

The platforms are yet available on desktop. However, the company might remove them shortly after. Also, the platforms are available in Google’s PlayStore.

There have been rumours about the reasons why Apple pulled down the MT4 and MT5. Much of the discussions are linked with the Western sanctions on Russia. Since being registered and headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus, MetaQuotes has its origins in Russia and its founder and CEO Renat Fatkhullin, alongside his brother Lenar Fatkhullin – the company’s Marketing Director – are Russians.

Another reason is that the platforms are non-compliant with the App Store Review Guidelines.

Neither Apple nor MetaQuotes has commented on the removal of the trading platforms.

About MetaQuotes

Since its introduction, the MetaTrader trading platform has grown to become a giant in the online forex and CFD industry.

The software has enjoyed decades-long patronage from industry stakeholders and remains a top choice for online retail forex traders.

While MT4 was introduced in 2005 and optimized for online forex trading, upgraded MT5 was released in 2010, offering access to additional CFD markets: stocks, indices, commodities, futures, energies, etc.

For more information visit MetaQuote’s official website.

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Robinhood introduces Robinhood Investor Index

The index is based on Robinhood’s 20 million+ funded customer accounts.

It is to be updated monthly.

robinhood

Robinhood, a major US commission-free stock trading and investing app, launched the Robinhood Investor Index on Friday to track the top 100 stocks its users are investing in.

The Index, which is based on data on the stock holdings or positions of the firm’s 20 million+ funded customer accounts, will be updated once a month.

“Over the last several years, we’ve seen our customers — and millions more like them — play an increasingly important role in the market. With the Robinhood Investor Index launch, we’re giving customers, and the world, a look at everyday investor positioning and performance on Robinhood,” Robinhood explained in a statement published on Friday.

Robinhood noted that, unlike many other indices, its new investor index is not “weighted by dollars but by conviction.”

“We measure a customer’s conviction for each investment by looking at the percentage it makes up of their portfolio,” the US trading app operator noted.

Additionally, Robinhood explained: “And to ensure that all customers are equally represented, we average conviction for each investment across all customers, whether they have $20 or $20 million in their account.

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Nasdaq Collaborates with Onbrane, Introduces Nasdaq Primary

The tool will facilitate the digitization of the debt capital raise process.

Onbrane is a European fintech company.

Nasdaq logo

Nasdaq recently announced that it has partnered with Onbrane, a Europe-based financial technology firm providing technology-driven solutions to the debt market, for the launch of Nasdaq Primary.

According to the details shared by the company in an official announcement, Nasdaq Primary is an important tool that facilitates the digitization of the process of raising debt capital by providing an all-in-one platform for market participants.

Headquartered in France, Onbrane provides a broad range of services to players in the debt market. The company has expanded its services substantially in the past few months to meet the growing demand.

“Onbrane´s purpose is to help build a better, more sustainable primary debt market. We couldn’t think of a better partner than Nasdaq to do so. In addition to sharing the same passion for technology, Nasdaq and Onbrane share the same commitment and focus on bringing innovative technology to the debt market. We are very excited to partner with Nasdaq to provide the global primary debt market with a market infrastructure that answers today’s growing demand for efficiency, security compliance and sustainability,” said Pascal Lauffer, Onbrane’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer.

Read our articles about best brokers with Nasdaq.

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Ethereum Merge Goes Live

The network transition will reduce energy consumption significantly.

The deposit contract of ETH 2.0 now has more than 13.71 million staked Ethereum.

robinhood

Ethereum Merge, the much-awaited event in the history of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, went live on 15 September 2022. In an official announcement on Thursday, Vitalik Buterin, the Co-Founder of Ethereum, confirmed the finalization of the merge and termed it as “a big moment” for the crypto ecosystem.

According to an estimate, the transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake will reduce global energy consumption by almost 0.2%. “And, we finalized. Happy merge all. This is a big moment for the Ethereum ecosystem. Everyone who helped make the merge happen should feel very proud today,” Buterin highlighted in a Tweet today.

Since the launch of the Beacon Chain in December 2020, the crypto community showed massive support for the network upgrade of Ethereum. According to Etherscan, a block explorer and analytics platform for ETH, more than 13.71 million coins have been staked under the deposit contract of ETH 2.0.

Following the completion of the merge, ETH spiked by over 3% and crossed the price level of $1,600. The cryptocurrency is currently trading near $1,650 with a market cap of more than $200 billion.

Read our article about best brokers for trading Ethereum.

Impact of Merge

Commenting on the potential impact of the latest development across the ETH network, Simon Peters, a Market Analyst at eToro, said: “Ethereum is arguably the largest ecosystem within crypto. Thousands of projects and decentralized applications (dapps) rely on the Ethereum blockchain to store data and manage their dapps. As the Ethereum ecosystem has grown, scaling solutions have been called upon to keep dapps fast and cheap to use in terms of the transaction or ‘gas’ costs. At its core, this is the main reason for transitioning from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS).”

“Also essential is making the network more energy efficient. This has particular importance in the current global macroeconomic circumstances, in which energy prices are high and emission reductions are expedient. The Ethereum Foundation estimates energy usage will drop from around 112 terawatt-hours per year to just 0.1,” he added.

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Can New Offshore Brokers Adapt to MetaQuotes’ Tightened White Label Policy?

MT4/5 is the top choice trading platform among CFD brokers, even white labels. But, MetaQuotes’ new white label requirements are troubling new offshore brokers.

MetaQuotes

Since 2018, MetaQuotes has not been selling MT4 full servers because of its campaign for brokers to transit to its newer technologically-advanced MT5 trading platform. Hence, new brokers looking to offer forex and CFD services depend on white-label offerings from established brokers that have access to the MT4 servers to kick off their own brokerages, hence saving costs.

In addition, MetaQuotes offers white-label services to brokerages who use the software provider’s infrastructure to run their own forex and CFD brands. Opting for MetaQuotes’ white label service has been said to be much more expensive than patronising established brokers.

While this arrangement has been going on for years, prospective forex and CFD brokers are finding it hard to be onboarded by white-label services to kick off their new brands. This difficulty has been attributed to tougher requirements being requested by MetaQuotes from brokers before processing their white-label requests.

Let’s see what are the requirements now, including those recently added, for MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 White Labels:

  • Certificate of Incorporation
  • Register of Directors and Register of Shareholders
  • Registered and Physical Address
  • Corporate Account Verification

The toughest of these requirements is corporate account verification.

New brokers are also required to provide a recent Certificate of Good Standing or a Certificate of Incumbency (if the company is older than six months), and confirmation of domain ownership with registration details in the company’s full name.

They are also to provide a certified reference letter or statement issued by the bank. This statement, which verifies the existence of an active bank account, must contain the company’s registration number and registered address.

Furthermore, one of the latest onboarding requirements is for the key persons behind the brokerage to verify their identity on video recording with their passports or identity cards.

Corporate account verification is a big challenge because most brokers choose to start out in jurisdictions such as Seychelles, Vanuatu and St Vincent and the Grenadines where regulations are less stringent in order to save cost.

Compared to ‘onshore’ locations, offshore jurisdictions’ requirements from news brokers are easier to meet; hence, they attract many smaller-sized brokers who want to break into the retail trading industry.

The official website of MetaQuotes – metaquotes.net

MetaQuotes Background

Trading platform MetaTrader 4 (MT4) since its introduction in 2005 has grown to be a giant in the online foreign exchange industry. The software is now comfortably the number one choice for online retail forex traders.

MT4, which was primarily built for the forex market, was developed by MetaQuotes, a leading software development company that serves brokerages, banks, and exchanges.

In 2010, MetaQuotes introduced MetaTrader 5 (MT5), an upgraded version of the trading platform. The newer trading platform came with added features, such as support for trading in CFDs, stocks, options, and futures markets.

On June 7, 2021, MetaQuotes reported that MT5 became a more popular platform than MT4 for the first time in history. The developer reported at the time that the number of lines of MetaTrader 5 code “exceeded 7 million” when the previous version numbered “only 2 million”.

These statistics prove the decades-long patronage MetaQuotes has been enjoying from both on- and offshore entities in the retail forex and CFD industry.