LeapRate interview…Chief Commercial Officer of Brokeree Solutions, Elina Bagautdinova, sat down with LeapRate.
With more than a decade of experience in strategic management positions, Elina started her career in the industry in 2011. She holds Bachelor in marketing & commerce and Master’s degree in production and logistics management from Saint Petersburg State University of Finance and Economics. Elina also co-founded software development company that serves FX brokerages all over the globe.
LR: Hi Elina and thank you for joining LeapRate today. Can you first tell us more about Brokeree and the people behind it?
Elina: Brokeree was founded in 2013 as a technology provider for financial institutions, when the two of us decided to make the technological vision of my genius partner a reality. Fundamentally, everything we had back then was ideas, dreams, and common core values. Today, we assist brokers by providing global connectivity and liquidity aggregation technology, investment management solutions, and a wide variety of applications for MetaTrader servers.
In fact, thanks for asking this question as, for me personally, business is all about people in the first place. Whether they are the passionate professionals from the Brokeree team or our visionary and progressive clients, who constantly keep the dialogue open, people are the driving force behind the company who have made it what it is today. We are fortunate to have a group of people who share the company values, listen to the feedback, and are continuously adapting to the changing market conditions regardless of their roles and responsibilities. From having perfectionists like our Head of Technical support, forward-looking leaders like the Head of R&D to a motivated conductor like Operations Director and strong in analytics as our Marketing Manager, our professional team comprises bright and open individuals who strive relentlessly to pursue one common goal: develop novel solutions that meet our clients’ evolving demands.
LR: What is the primary focus of Brokeree?
Elina: If we talk in general, the primary focus of Brokeree is to assist forex brokers by offering high-grade technological solutions and services that accommodate their every need and allow them to run their business more efficiently.
If we talk about the present scenario, we’ve been focusing more on making all our key products multi-server to provide growing brokerages with the necessary infrastructure.
LR: How has Brokeree been managing through this challenging period of global uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic?
Elina: Fortunately, process-wise and from an employee perspective, we’ve prepared for such a scenario for years by allowing employees to work from our “virtual office”. While we can not enforce each team member to follow the safety recommendations, since this is still a personal responsibility, we’ve launched several initiatives (like personal remote physical exercises) that put safety, health, and well-being of our employees at the heart of our decision making.
On the business side, we saw an influx in trading volumes that subsequently led brokers to demand technological improvements and we assisted them within our expertise to help adapt to the changing external environment.
LR: Brokeree recently released a major update to their flagship product — Social Trading for MetaTrader 4 and 5. Is Social Trading gaining more popularity this year?
Elina: The demand for the Social Trading platform has been growing among brokers, who want to build internal systems that allow them to provide the service without any potential risk of the client’s leak. We also noticed the growing demand from traders contacting us to take advantage of the system. The Brokeree system allows MT4/MT5 brokers to extend their service offerings and strengthen their brand while getting several other perks.
LR: What steps should be taken to ensure a smooth transition to multi-server money management systems?
Elina: It is important to differentiate between intra-brokerage and cross-brokerage money management systems. Depending on the business goal and needs, brokers can choose either one of the above systems. Cross-brokerage software is preferred by companies that want to provide their clients with the opportunity to interact with traders of different financial institutions.
On the other hand, the intra-brokerage multi-server money management system is designed to serve the clientele of one broker only. In such instances, brokers should have more than one trading server and should configure the solution under supervision or with the help of the Brokeree team to ensure a smooth transition.
LR: What are the differences between the most popular money management systems, such as PAMM, MAM and Social Trading?
Elina: Each system is designed for a specific business goal depending on the size and skill level of the target audience, culture and habits of the end client, and even the geography. At the same time, there are other factors that determine the application of these systems, including scalability for brokers who want to grow their clientele, regulator requirements, time to service launch, and flexibility of the configuration. These money management systems have been created keeping in mind all the above factors. Technically, these systems differ from each other in terms of the allocation method. While Social Trading is about copying trades using different modes, like multiplicator, PAMM involves direct investment itself, meaning literally trusting funds with the money manager without the possibility of up-to-the-minute control. In contrast, MAM systems vary from provider to provider, but technically speaking, they usually combine the peculiarities/logic of PAMM and Social Trading.
LR: When and why a brokerage might want to add an additional MetaTrader server?
Elina: There can be several reasons for that, including too many clients for one trading server, clients’ location and the speed of order execution, different brands a company or group of companies uses, introduction of another trading platform, etc. In 2020, we saw more brokerages shifting from MetaTrader 4 to MetaTrader 5 or offering both trading platforms to their clients. There is still a growing number of new MT4 white-labels who might consider acquiring their own MT5 server once their business expands.
LR: What are the considerations/challenges when organizing multi-server money management services?
Elina: Considerations when organizing multi-server money-management services are mostly related to operations and/or the technical side of a business. Before trying technology solutions, the following scenarios should be considered:
- What service is required? For example, PAMM, Social Trading, MAM, and why?
- How many business entities will be involved?
- How will the logic of allocation cohere to the legal side of the business?
At this stage, it might occur that a multi-server solution is not suitable at all or, for example, the solution wanted in the first place will not cover the legal requirements.
Technically, brokers should pay close attention to the performance of the server, physical or virtual, where the solution will be hosted, etc.
Of course, depending on the system many more considerations and challenges might come up and should be discussed case by case.
