Last week I invited a group of retail FX traders to have a conversation on their experiences dealing with FX brokerage firms. This is something I do quite often as it helps me to keep current with what retail traders go through in choosing where to open an account.
We talked about the many challenges that they faced as well as what they wanted to see going forward. One of the more interesting topics had to do with the length of time and cost of topping up their brokerage account. One trader was recently in a position where she had multiple positions in play but was near a margin-call. She did not want to close nor did she wanted a margin-call as she knew that the brokerage would close most of her positions to her detriment. Most of the other traders in this group have been in the same position as well at some point when trading.
Now I was not here to give them advice with the pitfalls of over-leveraging trades but to listen to what their pain was and find solutions that would help mitigate it.
In this discussion several traders commented that they wanted to send money to their brokerage account unfortunately not only would it have taken too much time(even with credit cards) but it was too expensive as it was.
So I asked what if you could send money to your brokerage account, where it would show up as a credit within an hour and in most cases minutes, nor cost you an exchange fee if the currency was different than the base currency in your brokerage account and with no transfer costs as well.
Everyone of these retail traders wanted me to tell them the broker that was offering this feature....This should give brokerages something to think about.... This was just one feature and believe me there was many more that we talked about...
When an executive from a brokerage calls me and laments on how stagnant the state of FX sales are or the cost of acquiring new clients etc. it puts a smile on my face as there are a myriad of ways to offer what clients are looking for in a brokerage.... :)
If you have questions ask away...