Exclusive Interview with Advanced Markets: Natallia Hunik Talks About the Formula of Becoming a Successful PoP

Natallia Hunik is the Chief Revenue Officer at Advanced Markets, an industry-leading company that provides true Direct Market Access (DMA) liquidity, credit and technology solutions to the foreign exchange, energy, precious metals and CFD markets. She has expertise in international business development and experience in financial services, fixed income, and enterprise sales. 

Natallia Hunik joins Fazzaco today to talk about how Advanced Markets stands out in the forex market.

Fazzaco: Hi, Natallia, thank you for having the interview with Fazzaco. Could you please give us an introduction to yourself and Advanced Markets? 

Advanced Markets: My name is Natallia Hunik and I am the Chief Revenue Officer at Advanced Markets Group and I am responsible for spearheading Advanced Markets’ global expansion efforts by cultivating business relationships with industry leaders around the globe. 

Founded in 2006, Advanced Markets Group is a leading provider of wholesale liquidity, technology, and credit solutions to professional traders, corporates, FX money managers, hedge funds, family offices, brokers and banks globally. Advanced Markets brings true Direct Market Access (DMA) liquidity, alongside credit and technology solutions, to the foreign exchange, energy, precious metals and CFD markets. 

The Company operates two licensed entities: Advanced Markets (UK) Ltd, a company authorized and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) (Register Number: 777739), and Advanced Markets Ltd., a company licensed under ASIC as an Australian Financial Services Licensee pursuant to section 913B of the Corporations Act 2001 (ARBN:164968549, AFSL:444649). 

In May 2021, new investors Forexify and Corbel joined existing shareholders Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG) and GFI Group LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of BGC Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: BGCP) who have reduced their stakes to accommodate new investors for the next phase of Advanced Markets' growth. The new investor lineup combines the specialist and deep Industry expertise of Forexify and Corbel with the institutional knowledge of Macquarie Group and BGC. 

The firm is highly-capitalized, now being jointly-owned by Macquarie Americas Corp Inc.(a wholly-owned subsidiary of Macquarie Bank), BGC Partners, Forexify and Corbel and Advanced Markets management. 

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Fazzaco: Advanced Markets is well-known in the forex industry. So why did you choose to attend the event this time and what are you hoping to take away from the experience?

Advanced Markets: It has been a challenging year for all of us and while we have been lucky as an industry to be able to seamlessly transition to doing business online, it goes without saying that no technology can replace human interaction. 

That’s the primary reason behind attending, and sponsoring the show. Another reason is the regional importance of Dubai as an emerging hub for FX businesses. We have been operating here for a number of years and recognize the ultimate importance of providing solutions to fit the requirements of this market. For example, this year we have opened accounts at local banking institutions and now are able to accept local AED deposits. 

Fazzaco: What was the ROI of sponsoring this event? 

Advanced Markets: I am sure that many industry veterans will attest that collecting quality leads at a B2B show can be a challenging task, particularly as the event venue is typically filled with industry peers and, a lot of times, direct or indirect competitors. Regardless, such events are a great way to catch up with the industry trends, learn what your competition is up to, reconnect with the current partners, and brainstorm potential synergies. 

You can Download our expo ROI spreadsheet to get a rough estimate. 

Fazzaco: Can you describe how technology can help you stand out in the market? 

Advanced Markets: We provide a one-stop solution for new and established FX brokerages that is perfect for institutions looking to reduce costs and improve productivity with a fully integrated aggregator/Bridge OMX of their choice setup. Order management, trading, risk management, operations, reporting, compliance tools, clearing and execution – all are available as part of our complete platform. 

Our Liquidity is distributed via a plethora of channels, including, but not limited to, major ECNs (FastMatch, Celer, Lucera, First Derivatives, TradAir and others), FIX API 4.4, commercial trading platforms such as First Derivatives / Kx, commercial MT4/5 bridge providers ( PrimeXM, Gold-I, OneZero, TraderToolsFX, MatchTrade, TakeProfitTechnology, Fortex, Centroid Solutions,Tools 4 Brokers, TradeSocio and others) 

Fazzaco: Can you introduce your Prime of Prime service and Prime Brokerage service? 

Advanced Markets: Prime of Primes are bridging the gap between the institutional and retail FX markets by offering faster onboarding processes, access to interbank liquidity and the latest technology advances all bundled into a single offering. 

Prime of Primes will generally offer higher leverage than a Tier 1 PB as well as plug-and-play integration into a single aggregated feed via an industry-standard FIX API or standard adaptors/connectors to other platforms (i.e. an MT4 bridge).

Before starting a relationship with a Prime of Prime / liquidity provider, a broker should be looking for a reliable and reputable licensed partner in order to, first, ensure the safety of client funds. As we all know, history is the best predictor of the future, so it is imperative that the company has a clean track record and an impeccable reputation. 

Quality of fills, execution, price feed stability and overall trading conditions are on the list of priorities for FX businesses when selecting a PoP partner. Oftentimes, clients make the mistake of evaluating an offering based on spreads and commissions and end up being misled into believing that they can get fills at the advertised prices. Many “quasi” Prime of Primes are offering tight spreads that turn out to be only applicable for tiny trade sizes and often requotes, rejects and slippage make the total overall spread cost significantly higher than advertised. 

Fazzaco: In your opinion, what are the top concerns for a broker in choosing liquidity providers? 

Advanced Markets: Essentially, here is the formula I’ve outlined for the truly successful prime of prime: 

Real Prime of Prime = B2B + PB + Reliable Technology + STP 

1) Ideally, the Prime of Prime is B2B-only, to avoid any conflict of interest between the broker and its Prime of Prime liquidity provider. 

2) A real Prime of Prime needs to have a Tier 1 Prime Brokerage relationship - (example: Advanced Markets is primed by UBS AG and Standard Chartered Bank) 

3) Reliable technology - Is the vendor dependent on 3rd party technology? If so, which one? (You may want to conduct due diligence on the vendor separately). Do they have their own technology? As a client, some of the key things that you should be looking for from the technology are stability, scalability and robustness. 

4) A real Prime of Prime must be STP-only (straight-through processing) indicating that they will be actually sending your trades directly to the market and not managing all, or some, of the risk in-house.(The whole point of entering into a Prime of Prime relationship). 

Fazzaco: Do you think it is a good choice for a forex broker to become a liquidity provider? 

Advanced Markets: I think most FX brokers have already tried dipping their toes into the liquidity businesses from 2016 through to 2018. I think many learned that in order to become a liquidity provider you need to not only have the technology to power it, but also add value. What happened as a result of the trend is a lot more liquidity recycling in the space and quick realization that margins in the liquidity space are much tighter than in the FX broker’s core business.

Fazzaco: At the end of last year, your executives were involved in a hot debate about RTS28 on LinkedIn. What’s your view on RTS 28 now? What’s your comment on suspension of RTS27? 

Advanced Markets: I believe that the FX space needs a lot more transparency and that will only be of benefit all stakeholders and industry players. Unfortunately, this vision does not necessarily seem to resonate with many in the space which, in my opinion, ultimately hurts the industry’s reputation. FX businesses are struggling to find a place within traditional financial systems and have to deal with extra fees and scrutiny due to the high risk nature of the business. My belief is that this perception can be collectively changed, but we need more “cooperation”, rather than cut -throat competition.