Social trading network TradeSlide has adapted its methodology significantly recently, having undergone a complete re-branding exercise which includes a change of corporate image to Darwinex.
The company today notified LeapRate that it has issued a notice to traders stating that “During the last year, we’ve explored broker-partnerships for investors to back the most skilled traders on our luck-free Leaderboard. The thinking was: a rigorously rated PAMM service for talented trader & savvy investor benefit.”
The new name represents a shortened term for Darwin Exchange, Darwin itself being an acronym for Dynamic Asset & Risk Weighted Investing.
The move has been conducted due to TradeSlide’s conclusion that it had been previously not possible to guarantee best execution for all traders, ensure that all incentives are aligned across broker, technology provider and social trading provider, as well as ensuring that investors could replicate stategies by paying traders for full upside.
The company took the decision to ensure that these matters could be controlled internally by evolving from a social trading provider to what it terms as a trader and investor profit exchange.
The company holds a license with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in London to provide services on an STP-only basis.
Broker neutral social trading networks have become somewhat de rigeur these days, partly as a result of the need to cover a broad network of brokerage types in order to gain users, but also as a result of the traditional social trading network model having changed substantially since the days of working with brokers as under an affiliate agreement, under which it was commonplace for market makers to add a pip to the spread.
The profitability of such a model has dwindled since retail FX traders opted en masse for non-dealing desk brokerage services with real market spreads from direct liquidity aggregation, along with customer reluctance to pay elevated spreads to capitalize social trading networks.
On this basis, Darwinex has taken the entire trading environment itself in order to provide an end to end solution, a model which is becoming increasingly prominent in these social media orientated times.