FXMarket’s COO Herbert Wilson Talks about Forex Landscape and Challenges of Asian Market

Founded in 2002, FXMarket is London-headquartered international professional stock index broker with offices in the US, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia and St. Vincent and specializes in providing one-stop trading services including precious metals, commodities, stock indices, Hong Kong and US stocks, bonds and digital currencies.

As a sub-brand of the Group, QIMI FXMarket Ltd is an important part of the Group's globalization strategy in East and Southeast Asia and focuses on the layout and customer development in the Asia-Pacific region since its establishment, tapping into the various needs of Chinese customers worldwide.

Today, Fazzaco invited Herbert Wilson, COO of FXMarket, to talk about the forex landscape and challenges of Asian Market.

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Fazzaco: Hello, Herbert. Firstly please tell us about yourself and FXMarket?

Herbert: I'm Herbert, COO of FXMarket, and I'd like to thank the organizer of the BrokersShow — FX110, for inviting me to join your interview and providing a bridge between the platform and investors in the context of COVID-19. Founded in London in 2002, FXMarket has offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, St. Vincent and Malaysia. FXMarket holds licenses from four jurisdictions: ASIC in Australia, NFA in the United States, FINTRAC in Canada and FSA in St. Vincent. 

In 2015, we entered the Chinese market to focus on CFDs index, ranking the first in the market segment of stock index. After 2019, we increased our advertising investment in forex, gold and digital currency, and successively partnered with medias such as FX110, Huichacha etc.

Fazzaco: What is your main target countries or regions? And how big is the market?

Herbert: Currently we are focusing on three major markets: European, Southeast Asian and the China mainland. In European regions, we are mainly providing  asset management, corporate advisory and financial trusting services for institutional investors. In mainland China, we started our brokerage business from stock index and has grown into an integrated brokerage with great strengths in forex, precious metals, indices and digital currency. And with the explosive growth of bitcoin trading, we believe this will become another growth momentum for us. Southeast Asia is a market with a population volume close to 600 million, so we have been increasing our investment in advertising and localized operations in recent years and planing to open a Singapore office by the end of 2021.

Fazzaco: What are the main challenges in operating an FX brokerage in the Asian markets?

Herbert: The main challenges at present are regulatory changes and cultural differences. We need to continue to cooperate with local regulators, strengthen corporate culture and effective communication, and localize marketing operations.

Fazzaco: How does the local market compare to Europe and Australia countries?

Herbert: Compared to the mature markets in Europe and Australia, the Asian market has more potential and more opportunities for development, but of course there are more challenges.

Fazzaco: How have the ASIC leverage restrictions affected your business model?

Herbert: It did affect us, mainly reflecting in the increasing amount of work. All departments, especially the legal department, have to actively study the new ASIC regulations and work overtime becomes the routine, even  more than 16 hours a day for certain periods. And FXMarket has also adjusted its Australia and global strategies to conduct business in a compliant and legal manner under new regulatory framework.

Fazzaco: What steps have you taken to ensure you are compliant with ASIC’s new regulation?

Herbert: Australian clients strictly follow the leverage limit rules required by new regulation. Meanwhile our company effectively meets the diversified needs of  clients through four different licenses from major global regulators.

Fazzaco: Fazzaco has learned that FXMarket has become the silver sponsor of BrokersShow. What motivated you to participate in this virtual expo?

Herbert: Since FX110 held the virtual exhibition last year, our company actively participated in each session and never missed it, from Shanghai, Taiwan to Malaysia exhibition. On the one hand, we appreciate the way of online exhibition. On the other hand, the communication between investors and platforms have become less under the epidemic, so we need such opportunity to gather. We will continue to participate in other online exhibitions and hope that the organizer will continue to hold so that more platforms and investors can join.