Company news

Taylor Bingwa, Customer success manager UpTrader

For entrepreneurs who are only starting their own forex brokerage companies it’s not easy to realize which kind of a platform (MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5) to choose and whether to buy a full license or a white label? It seems the differences, pros and cons are clear in general, but when it comes to the final decision, one might start to wonder what to choose. MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5? What is better for business? A Full license or a White Label? Where are the benefits? As it is known the devil in the details. Let’s find it out.

Full license or White Label MT4 / MT5?

Let’s start with the definition of a White Label.

White Label is a type of a collaboration where one company rebrands services or products of another company and sells them as its own.  In the forex world the term White Label is most often used for reselling MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 trading platforms. Only brokers which have a full MetaTrader license can provide MetaTrader White Label to other companies. They create new account groups, allocate space on their servers, and supply companies with their technical support staff. All these features are necessary for new brokers, but they can cost a lot in case they do it by themselves. That is why new companies prefer White Label rather than a full MetaTrader License. White Label allows you to get great services at a great price.   

Pros and cons of buying a MetaTrader 4 / 5 full license

If you start a Forex brokerage firm, you definitely need to decide whether your clients will work with MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5? In case you prefer to work only with MT4, your only choice is to buy White Label MetaTrader 4, because MetaQuotes stopped selling full MT4 licenses in 2020. So now only companies that bought licenses before 2020 can continue working with MT4 server. The rest of the companies can buy only the MT4 White Label. But anyway the MT4 license cost a fortune, so small brokers barely could afford it.

In case you are ready to work with MT5, you can buy the license directly on the MetaQuotes website. They offer a free set up and a $5K monthly fee. In addition you will have to pay $200-300 per month for servers and around $10K for your staff. To cut these costs you can outsource staff and server support to UpTrader, it will cost only $2000 per month.    

Comparing White Label MetaTrader 4 to White Label MetaTrader 5. What to choose?

Actually, there is no right answer, both are perfect for trading. The choice depends more on your current business and future plans. But we have to mention that MT 4 developer MetaQuotes stopped selling MT4 a year ago, and now the main MetaQuotes product is the terminal MetaTrader 5. It means that there are no plans to develop the platform MT4, all resources are allocated to MetaTrader 5. By this the developer shows its intentions to advance only MT5. 

MetaTrader 4 White Label will be the best choice for their own brokerage firm only for IBs (Introducing Brokers) whose clients are already used to MetaTrader 4. This is a right decision for this kind of Introducing Brokers. If you need WL MT4, White Label Forex Provider UpTrader has this option as well. 

Talking about pros and cons of MT4 and MT5, just take a look at the comparison table with details about each one. 

Also take a look at metaquotes’ table. 

Conclusions:

If it’s necessary for you to work with MT4, you need to choose a dependable provider. 

If your choice is MT5, you can choose between MT5 Full License, MT5 White Label or the MT5 Full License + server and stuff outsourcing.

If you buy the MT5 Full License and manage the MT platform and servers by yourself, you pay around $15K per month. But your business is absolutely independent and you can do anything.
If you buy the full license and outsource server management and technical support staff, you pay around $7K. In this case you save a lot of money but still have flexibility in trading condition settings.
If you buy White Label from UpTrader, you pay $4000 per month and get a fully ready to use broker. But you don’t have wide opportunities for your own settings. Still, you will have a choice of our ready-to-use settings, which are already tailored according to the best practices of the market.

Any questions left? Contact us and we will help you get answers. 

Leave a request at uptrader.io and we call you back ASAP.

This week we have completed testing MT5 UpTrader Invest - a social trading platform for MT5 white label and forex brokers. It’s the second investment service created by UpTrader. The first one was launched for the MetaTrader 4 platform in April 2021. So now all brokers that work with MT4 or MT5 White Label or have their own MetaTrader get the opportunity to level up their business with a well made social trading platform which gives you flexible settings and easy management.  
 

MT5 UpTrader Invest is based on the technologies of PAMM, MAM, and social trading. It means that you can choose how your money managers and clients will earn money with you. The main difference between these modules is how investors and masters will see the profit and funds. 

If you choose MAM MT4 or MT5, the master (money manager) trades using investor funds, Investors can see individual trades.

If you choose PAMM, the master trades using investor funds, Investors can’t see individual trades.

If you choose Social trading platform, master can’t see all the funds,

Investors can see individual trades.

The features of the copy trading platform “MT5 UpTrader Invest”

Stability: 

The main thing is that our copy trading platform is highly stable. That means there is no loss of connection during copying of trades. A lot of similar investment services have such problems, and it makes their services poor. That’s why we had found a solution before we started to develop this platform. As a result our clients have a quality service for their investors.  

A-book, B-book brokers:

The good news is that brokers can keep earning money how they are used to. 

It means that anything already used by the broker will be ok: spreads, fees, automated trading advisors. The copy trading platform works with any variations of A-book and B-book. In addition, A-book brokers will be able to hedge their risk more efficiently.

Forex affiliates (Introducing Brokers):  

If you have a multi-level partnership program and work with forex affiliates, you can let them use our copy trading software to help attract new customers. The partnership reward will be paid out automatically as usual. 
 

- To get information about all the features, please go to the page.

- If you are interested in a forex social trading platform white label for MetaTrader 4 please go to the link for a big interview with UpTrader CEO Vasily Alexeev about ‘MT4 UpTrader Invest”

- Also you can leave a request for a presentation and we will contact you as soon as possible. [email protected] 

Terms

PAMM - percentage allocation management module (Similar to MAM, but the history of trades isn’t available to investors)

MAM MT4 and MT5 - Multi Account Manager  in this solution, the trader operates in the accounts of several clients at once. Investors transfer their funds to the accounts of managers. Each client has an account to track their part of the common trades.

Social trading - automated copying of trades to the accounts of investors. Funds remain in investment accounts, and the trades are also placed there.

Social trading software /platform - investment service for MetaTrader 4 / MetaTrader 5 white label copy trading platforms which allows your customers to invest in investment strategies and get profit by coping orders from successful trading accounts. 

The situation with licensing in Forex has drastically changed over the last five years: above all, new regulations hit the ability of unlicensed companies to accept payments, thus creating a significant obstacle for their operation

Originaly posted on Financefeeds

By Vasily Alexeev, CEO UpTrader.io

In this short review, we have covered the viable operating models of Forex brokers today. Perhaps surprisingly, despite the stricter legislation, there are always ways to work around the rules. 

No licensing  

Amid the sweeping restrictions imposed on unlicensed brokers, it would seem that this model is obsolete, but such brokers are still there in numbers, and new companies continue to enter the market quite successfully. So, is it possible to work without a license? Easy: it takes one month and $2–3K to register a business in, say, the Grenadines, and only your passport is required.  

There’s a downside, however—you won’t be able to accept payments through the banking system, bank card transfers, and well as advertise your business legally. You’ll also likely face problems with popular payment systems, you won’t be able to operate officially in jurisdictions where providing Forex services without a license is prohibited, and there are fewer and fewer counties where licensing is not a requirement. However, it’s not all bad. China and Thailand have long banned Forex, but hundreds of brokers continue to exist there. They work with local payment systems and operate perfectly fine. These systems work almost with any brokers—the key is to reach an understanding. Other than that, cryptocurrency payments are getting more popular every year. 

There’s also the issue of trust—it inevitably arises because of the stigma attached to an unregulated broker. As a proof of reliability, brokers can connect to Serenity—it’s a smart contract-based blockchain escrow. Serenity guarantees the security of deposits and completely eliminates any potential misappropriation of funds in the accounts of clients. Serenity has already earned the trust of a wide audience of traders. The system is easy to integrate, and with the growing popularity of cryptocurrency, it’s important that all payments in Escrow can be processed through the crypto exchanger SerenityPay.io. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. 

“Offshore lite” licensing 

The second option is more complex and more expensive: registering your broker with at least some kind of legality. The most popular licenses are in Seychelles and Labuan (Malaysia). You’d have to pay €50–70K, and the registration would take about nine months. As a result, the broker receives a permit to operate in these countries.  

The access to banking and the international transfer system SWIFT allows brokers to attract bigger clients. Such a license also means access to liquidity providers, and hence better trading conditions, which gives a competitive advantage. A Labuan license means access to Malaysian banks.  

The main downside—such a license allows operating only as an STP (Straight Through Processing) broker. If a broker plans to work with A-book, STP is a plus. However, if we’re talking about a B-book broker or a hybrid model, this would make things difficult. Another downside is the annual expenses on staff and office in these countries, as it’s required by the jurisdictions: about $70K a year. 

It’s also worth noting that these licenses still don’t give access to bank card transfers. 

Mastercard doesn’t accept transfers from brokers without European or American licenses, Visa still does, but more and more reluctantly, and is expected to follow the example of Mastercard. Plus, these licenses don’t open the way for official advertising. 

The most valuable licenses  

The third path, the most valuable and most expensive, is acquiring a European or American license. The price tag starts at €1 mln, the waiting period is at least two years. As a rule, during this time, the company passes all conceivable procedures of business auditing, upon the completion of which a license will or will not be issued for your business. The upsides are obvious—all payment methods: SWIFT, VISA, Mastercard, any payment systems. All kinds of advertising: online, radio, TV. This option is obviously great for reputation and trust, and so forth. 

The downsides are also there: aside from the high price, licensing also imposes restrictions on the trading conditions: the leverage is limited to 1:50, and it’s prohibited to offer and advertise bonuses. Any violations can result in massive fines. Revoking of the license is also a reality: in 2019, Russia’s central bank terminated the licenses of four brokers out of five.  

The bottom line is that there always ways to operate despite the stricter regulations. 

Read more about how to choose jurisdiction?

Originaly posted on Medium

In May 2021 the UpTrader team visited the first fintech exhibition in Dubai after a forced 1.5-year break. During our 1-week visit we noticed that a lot of our clients and fintech companies opened their offices in Dubai. So we decided to do a small research of the trend and figure out why the Arabian night attracts the financial industry. We were wondering whether it is a good idea to open a representative office in the Emirates or not?

So there are at least 3 reasons why this might be interesting.

Real estate market in Dubai now

The real estate market in Dubai has been falling since 2014. And according to some expert estimates, it has not yet reached the bottom. In addition to Dubai’s own market problems, the global pandemic caused the prices to go down. In general, at the moment the market is still trying to deal with the consequences of the flooding of real estate objects that happened in 2014. At that time frozen construction projects began to be completed and released to the market after a protracted credit crisis in 2008. Eventually supply exceeded demand, and continues to exceed it to this day.

This year the market has fallen 8% for purchases and 12% for rentals, and continues to fall. New construction projects are flooding the market this year. Now prices are 30% lower than 2014 prices. However, to reach 2010 prices, according to experts, the market needs to lose another 20%.

In May 2021, our team had meetings in some Business Bay towers and we were impressed by the desolation of these giants. One can say wind and sand are walking through the unfinished offices. On the one hand, all this makes a depressing impression and reminds us of post-apocalypse from Blade Runner 2050, on the other hand, really low prices and rather lively business activity in Dubai attract the attention of business and make you think about the prospects for opening an office there.

Good bye Cyprus?

For the last two decades, Cyprus has been the traditional place for fintech developers. The offices of many well-known brokers were located there, as well as satellite companies serving them: software, legal, PR and advertising companies. Cyprus had become the forex capital for many years. That became possible because of Cyprus financial regulator, the only European regulator whose license at one time cost reasonable money and leniently regulated broker activities. Different types of brokers could get a license, and they did. One of the conditions for getting a license was the opening of an office in the country and the employment of a certain number of Cypriots.

The maintenance of such a small office costs 20–25 thousand euros per month. It could number in the hundreds of thousands for a bigger one. In general, the years were rich, and the morals in Forex were quite free.

However, since about 2015, the legislation of European countries has slightly begun to tighten the rules for financial brokers. Cyprus did not stand aside and soon obtaining a license in Cyprus became as difficult as in other European jurisdictions. As a result, brokers stopped getting Cysec’s licenses, followed by the closure of offices and the migration of companies. And there was not much sense left for the fintech service companies to open their representative offices there. But we are wondering where is the new capital of forex now?

Is Dubai the business and financial center of the future?

The United Arab Emirates have long been working on diversifying the economy, building a model based not only on the export of raw materials, but also on other industries, including developing business tourism. For this, in addition to the construction of new areas, the authorities create attractive tax conditions for business. So the United Emirates has 5 tax-free economic zones (according to the number of the emirates). Companies registering a business there must pay about 12 thousand dollars a year, but their activities are free from tax. What other benefits does a business have by opening an office there? As we said, 0 taxes. Up to 5 employees of the company can get a residence permit.

According to current prices, a square meter costs an average of $25 per month. Maintaining a small office in Dubai of about 70 square meters costs about $ 2,500 per month. Another crucial benefit is an access to Arab banks. So even unlicensed

brokers who have problems with European banks can count on the loyalty of local ones.

The Emirates attract different types of business via the annual international exhibitions. It makes Dubai an attractive hub for fintech.

So experts say that real estate prices in the Emirates will hit the bottom by 2022, so maybe now is the best time to start looking for offices or apartments with a gorgeous view of the business center or the sea.

The biggest fintech portal Finance Magnates just published an interview with Vasily Alexeev, CEO UpTrader, about a new investment service for Forex brokers launched last month. The service combines the most popular technologies (MAM, PAMM, LAMM). What advantages does UpTrader offer to the market?

Read on Finance Magnates

These are the questions that we asked Vasily Alexeev, the CTO and CEO of UpTrader. In April, his company announced the launch of its copy trading software UpTrader Invest. 

You’ve just announced the launch of copy trading software "UpTrader Invest". What are the innovations that your forex solution brings to the table? 

We get a lot of requests for investment services. Someone wants PAMM, others ask for MAM MT4, or social trading platform. In fact, many don’t see the difference between them, and the truth is, the difference is really minor.

And if we pay attention, we’ll see what the client is really saying: we want a stable and reliable service with flexible settings, and we need it live tomorrow.

So we didn’t create a new technology, we just reimagined what’s already out there on the market and offered a new combination. UpTrader Invest is an investment service with a simple interface and flexible settings. Another hallmark is the high degree of stability.

You’re putting a lot of emphasis on stability. Is the situation bad now? 

The thing is, many similar services have a common problem—they lose trades, it’s inevitable with external connection to the trading platform MetaTrader 4—that’s the way most of these solutions operate.

UpTrader Invest works in the MT4 core directly, which not only ensures the maximum speed of operation, but also prevents the loss of trades.  

UpTrader Invest—is it more than just MAM, PAMM, and social trading?  

Let’s clear up the terminology first. 

MAM stands for Multi Account Management. This means that there’s one common account used by the trader, while the investors’ accounts are indicative. This scheme allows for a more effective hedging of the strategy’s general position, i.e. moving to A-book. 

PAMM stands for Percent Allocation Management Module, basically the same as MAM. 

Social trading platform, or copy trading software, is essentially the same as MAM, the difference being that the trader operates not in a common account, but in their own one, while the trades are being copied to the connected accounts of investors.  

We offer all three modes of operation. MAM MT4 or MT5 is the standard mode. PAMM is the same as MAM, only investors can’t see the trades.

And the social trading (copy trading) mode—the manager only trades with their personal funds in their own account, the other accounts simply receive copied trades.

A broker can pick any mode it prefers, or enable all three simultaneously. 

Is UpTrader Invest a standalone entity, or a part of your Forex CRM? 

UpTrader Forex CRM was designed as a single control room for the broker on one side and for the client on the other. We create simple and succinct interfaces for the easy management of complex things.

We make an effort to spare our users unnecessary clicks, switching between windows, log-ins. That’s why all new UpTrader products are always integrated into Forex CRM.

However, if someone wants to buy this particular service as a standalone, we can provide the API, and the customer will be able to design their own interface, expand the plug-in the way they want, and connect it to their MetaTrader 4 on their own. 

What instruments are there to trade for a manager in investment accounts? 

Anything available in MT4. For example, if a broker buys a MT4 White Label solution from UpTrader, their clients get access to over 500 instruments: currencies, cryptocurrencies, spot metals, CFDs on futures, stocks, indices, bonds. 

Where and how can a client follow the account operations and manage trades?

Managing trades—no, investors can’t influence trades at all. Investors can connect or disconnect, deposit or withdraw, but that’s it. Everything that goes on in their accounts can be tracked using any available MetaTrader interface: in the mobile or desktop app, web terminal. And, of course, in our Forex CRM. 

How to choose a manager, connect/disconnect a strategy? 

An investor can choose a strategy from the list based on the profit history. They also see the manager’s preferred trading instruments. Then, they submit an investment request, which the manager accepts or rejects. The manager can also opt to accept all investments automatically. 

There are several ways of disconnecting from a strategy, it depends on the account settings: immediately, on approval, or on rollover, i.e. on schedule. 

What are the profit distribution options available in the service? 

The manager has three reward plans that can be selected in the settings: payouts per the manager’s trading volume, percentage of profit generated in a period determined by the manager, high watermark: payment only when investor’s profits reach a new high. 

What’s the earning scheme for the broker?  

There are no restrictions for brokers on how they want to make money in this service. It can be any existing arrangement—spreads, fees. The service works with any variations of A-book/B-book. 

No restrictions on the partnership program, partners receive rewards automatically for the clients they bring to the investment service.  

How fast can the service be integrated? Is there a trial period?  

Integration can be done at the speed of light—a client gets a fully functioning service in one day. Of course, customers can take it for a test run before making a purchase, we offer a trial period. 

More details about MT4/MT5 social trading platform white label here: https://uptrader.io/en/uptrader_invest

After visiting iFXExpo Dubai, we can confidently say that everything is in order on the forex market.

We are not going to talk about the joy of live meetings after a long break, since almost everyone has already written about it. And what else can we say, we completely agree that no Zoom can be compared with personal interaction. The entire UpTrader team noted that the demand for brokerage software has grown very much over the past year and a half, CRM becoming the favorite UpTrader product. Deals were made right at the booth. Customers paid in cash!

Also, future and current brokers were interested in payment systems, which should come as no surprise given the continuing restrictions on banks' work with unlicensed brokers.

Of the interesting anti-trends, one can note the loss of interest in crypto projects. Even if you remember the 2019 iFXExpo exhibition on Cyprus, when ICOs were already almost a thing of the past, crypto projects still aroused keen interest. Now everyone is interested in rather routine classic things like White Labels on MT4, MT5, Investment services, CRM, Licenses, liquidity for working in the Forex and CFD market. The hype settled down, the market returned to the classic financial business.