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'Over the past year online forex trading has grown by 200-300%, like online equity trading in the 1990s,' explains 32 year-old Nicholas Bang, Managing Director and one of the three partners who own ACM now that Refco is no longer involved.
'We offer much better value than retail banks with their wide spreads, and have completely changed the forex landscape in the last couple of years.
'The Refco collapse was difficult for us, but our clients' money was protected by numbered deposit accounts, and so we were able to weather this storm rather well. Swiss financial regulations are very strict and give you a protection that would not be as good in the US for example.
'We bought out the Refco stake in ACM and now the three partners have full control. This is a fast moving business and we want to put the Refco experience behind us and focus on the future, such as the opening of our new office here in Dubai.'
New to Dubai
But why choose Dubai, and why establish in the Dubai Media City and not the Dubai International Financial Centre? 'Dubai was a natural choice for us, this is the place where everything is happening,' says Mr. Bang looking from the window to a view over The Palm, Jumeirah.
'We are in the DMC because this is a representative office of a global Internet platform regulated in Switzerland, not Dubai, and have considerable experience of Arab clients from our base in Geneva.'
The ACM platform allows clients up to 100-times leverage, so if they invest $10,000 they can trade with up to $1 million in the forex markets. Is this not a bit risky? Could they not loose a lot more than they have invested?
'The client decides on the level of risk that they are comfortable with,' says Mr. Bang. 'But the account has a fail safe shutdown which will close all the positions if the client is coming near to losing the amount invested. This automatic position liquidation protects the client against large losses, and ACM as well.
'But that still means that the upside of leverage is available to the client. Thus you have a potential downside of $10,000 for this level of investment, and a potential upside based on funds 100 times bigger.
'The forex markets of the world are the biggest and most liquid with $1.3 trillion traded a day, more than 22 times larger than all the global equity markets combined.
'And we are one of the few firms which guarantee to trade in every single market scenario. There are no commissions on transactions or joining fees, and our spreads are among the lowest in the industry. The minimum entry level is $5,000.'
White labelling
ACM is also pursuing white-labeling products for banks in the GCC, and the Dubai office is partly to organize these sales.
'It is a risk-free service that a bank can offer its clients, using our platform but fully branded to the bank,' says Mr. Bang. 'We can lever off local bank branding strengths and not have to spend as long in acquiring clients.
'Our very stable platform is tried and tested and has conducted billions of trades, and represents an enormous investment in IT systems. We keep innovating and have recently introduced a trading system for cell phones. Next will be trading in petroleum derivatives and stock based CFDs.'
Peter J. Cooper
