Binary Options market heating up, as brokers look to add new products.
Binary options, digital options and financial spreadbetting have been around for a long time. However most Forex brokerage firms have avoided offering such trading to their clients, as win-it-all-or-lose-it-all trading has been (correctly) viewed as closer to gambling than it is to trading and investing — and leading Forex brokerage firms have been trying for a long time to explain that what they offer is not gambling.
However, given the recent slowdown in FX trading volumes,as evidenced by the Retail FX Volume Index sponsored by Leverate, several Forex brokerages have been looking to add new products for their clients to trade — everything from stocks and indices to options. This move has led to several software companies developing plug-and-play binary options software systems, which existing Forex brokerages can employ to add the asset class, or for new firms to start up offering only options trading.
One of these new software firms, MarketsPulse, announced today that they have been awarded ISO-9001 certification, another step in establishing their leadership and credibility in the binary options software business. Leading binary options platform providers include:
- MarketsPulse, as per above
- SpotOption
- TechFinancials / ORCA+
- TradoLogic / Binarix
Our research shows that binary options trading still pales volumes-wise in comparison with “traditional” FX-pairs and CFD trading, but is certainly growing in size at a much faster rate than the traditional products market. Not unexpected, given that it is newer and smaller in size to begin with.
For more on the global online trading market see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.