What will change in OANDA and Currensee? The wedding of two prominent figures in forex industry ought to bring out exciting fruits.
Yesterday (24/3) forex broker OANDA announced the official launch of its copy-trading service, the OANDA Trade Leaders Program. On September last year, OANDA have acquired Currensee, a US-based social trading network. For some time, people have wondered, what will change in OANDA and Currensee? the wedding of two prominent figures in forex industry ought to bring out and exciting treat. Well, now the treat is here at last.
A Step Forward
Back in September, OANDA have stated in its press release that technical teams are scheduled to begin the work to make the Currensee platform available to OANDA clients. Not long after, around December the Trade Leaders Program has begun. However, the official release on Monday mark a step forward for the Toronto-based brokerage as a forex broker who committed to provide innovative trading.
OANDA Trade Leaders Program provides similar monitoring of the leaders as in Currensee. That is, trade leaders performance are checked periodically every six months to determine whether they are still fit as leader or not. Consequently, someone who wants to be a trade leader also have to show a minimum of six months of consistent, positive, risk-adjusted performance.
As to Currensee, apparently it still maintains its role as introducing broker for other forex brokers, such as FXCM, Alpari, AvaTrade, and others. Currensee is one of the world's leading social trading. For some reasons, it is less popular than the others, but OANDA newest program surely will raise its prestige.
More Steps To Be Taken
If there are something as hot as bitcoin and binary options in the current forex industry, then they are Social Trading and it's descendant, Copy Trading. Social trading is a way for experienced traders to send out advices so their followers could benefit from that. While copy trading is a part from that scheme, where lead traders's actions are copied directly in their followers' account. It is less known in emerging countries, but there are many traders in advanced countries who need a way for them to benefit from forex trading despite being busy with their day job. Copy trading provides the perfect solution.
OANDA is not the only one who glance at copy trading. UK financial regulation body, FCA, recently stated their intention to regulate copy trading companies by classifying them as investment managers. It signals a new challenge for social trading, as FCA's action could be copied by other regulation body (pun intended). If that is so, then, what will OANDA do as a respected and regulated broker?
It maybe something like Tradency have done, that is, register to the related regulation authority. Tradency, a provider of mirror trading platform, today (26/3) announced that they are registered in Japan financial regulation authority, JFSA, as investment advisory business. Mirror trading is a twin of copy trading. The difference between them is that in mirror trading, the followers mirror lead traders' strategies, without any links between the followers' trading funds and the lead traders' funds. Tradency announcement couldn't be more timely, as it will give them superiority in the eyes of Japanese legal-conscious traders.