4 Ways to Differentiate Your Forex White Labelling Services from Competitors

Forex brokerages have been continuously seeing a strong upsurge in new entrants since forex is a fertile ground for business owners who want to start from scratch. The process of starting a brokerage business includes multiple important steps, among which a trading platform is one of the most crucial factors.

Purchasing solutions from a trading software company like the MetaQuotes costs as high as $200,000, a price beginner brokers can hardly afford. The white labelling model has its problems though, helping provide quick and easy access to a brokerage unit at a lower cost. All things considered, it remains the ideal option for small and medium-sized start-up brokerages to enter the FX market. 

When selecting a solution, brokers will naturally be keen to differentiate their White Label from others in the market. However, competition in the white labelling market is very tough, and many providers may find it hard to achieve product differentiation so as to stand out from the crowd and grow their business in this lucrative sector. 

​Status Quo of Broadly Similar White Label Solutions

Even tens of trading platforms are available in the forex market now, the fact that MetaTrader 4 is the most popular platform has actually changed little in the past decade. As shown in a prior article by Fazzaco, MT4 and its successor MT5 are controlling the vast majority of the forex market. 

The two platforms, thus, are often the first choice for a white label (WL) partnership, and naturally MetaTrader 4 and 5 white label solutions become the standard offering in the market. Obviously, it would not be wise for providers to achieve product differentiation by not centring around the two platforms, considering their predominant market shares. Leading white label providers that mainly offer MT4/MT5 solutions include B2Broker, Tools for Brokers, Leverate and FX Trade Tools, to name a few.

Additionally, white labelling means offering a trading infrastructure, so that the beginner broker can use recognized software and place their own branding on the platform. There is not much room for solution providers in this sector to stand out by expanding services packages. So how to differentiate your FX white labelling services from competitors?

Ensuring Scalability          

The evolution of the FX space has been phenomenal over the past years. Brokers today also need a feature-rich, robust and scalable platform to adapt swiftly to changes in client demands and regulation, in addition to access to liquidity in major currency pairs. 

Furthermore, in many cases, white label partnerships are now used as a means of achieving a strategic shift, such as quickly entering a new market segment, implementing digital transformation strategies and fulfilling compliance obligations. This further signals the increasing demand for sustainable, scalable white labelled services with flexible infrastructure.

Scalable solutions also give white label brokers more customized options. Many new brokers may not be clear on how the business will evolve and focus simply on launching the trading service at the beginning of a white label partnership. It happens rather often that they will continue to need additional functions, services or indicators to run the business activity their end-customers’ demand before long.

​Defining Partner Requirements and Providing Tailored Services

Brokers are now increasingly reassessing their business models as customer expectations and requirements have become higher and more sophisticated. Moreover, the increasing competition and ongoing economic and regulatory threats intensified this trend. 

In this scenario, white labelled services that are tailored to support a closer level of partnership and integration will naturally be more liable to be preferred by brokers today.

Using OpenAPIs

OpenAPIs allow white label platforms aggregate and distribute easily multiple services from and to other cloud-based or SaaS third-party providers. Ensuring that your platforms are based on OpenAPI technology is a prerequisite to support the white label partner’s ever-increasing requirements. 

Traders now begin to expect real-time responsiveness, customised functionality and seamless switch between devices, platforms and channels due to the impact of advances in consumer industries. As a result, the ability to deliver a differentiated user experience is currently considered a major competitive differentiator by brokers. 

The use of OpenAPI also allows white label partners to build tailor-made apps on their providers’ infrastructure and to integrate into their own applications and systems, so that they can offer the end-user a uniquely tailored digitized client experience.

Avoiding “Out-of-the-box” Solutions

As Neil Browning, Executive Director at Saxo Bank, has said, the days of “plug and play” solutions are over. Using an out-of-the-box solution means that the broker has no control over the trading platform technology, new features or development and it is helping its clients to trade on another broker’s platform. This will ultimately lead to the loss of competitive edge.