LeapRate Exclusive… Michael Karczewski, Head of Business Operations at Match-Trade Technologies, joins Leaprate today to talk about business development in the brokerage industry during the breakthrough changes in financial technologies and constant turmoil in the cryptocurrency market.
LR: Michael, Match-Trade is a provider of Forex and Crypto technology, how would you summarize last year for your company in the Fintech industry?
Michael: It was very engaging client-wise and very fruitful when it comes to the development of the product offer at the same time. 2018 was a year of many turbulences for the industry – mainly in the area of trading cryptocurrencies. High volatility and high price drop deepened the reluctance towards the crypto market brokers. Later on, several card payment operators introduced significant payment restrictions. This had not only a negative impact on the business of many brokers – but also limited customers’ freedom of choice. But since the fintech industry is focused on continuous innovation development, crypto payments were the obvious solution.
We have been working on a tool that would ease the process of buying crypto by credit card and safely transferring it to the chosen broker’s account. This way, after a few busy months, a new brand appeared in our portfolio – Match2Pay. Originally it was a payment processor gateway allowing brokers to accept cryptocurrency deposits. Today it’s already expanded with an Exchanger feature, which means that our clients can now purchase bitcoins via bank transfer or using a credit card. Exchanger operates under Estonian FIU license to provide a service of exchanging a virtual currency against fiat currency.
LR: Do you see any new threats to the crypto market, or maybe the downward trend has already been stopped?
Michael: The biggest threat I see is an attempt to regulate the market in a way it won’t be able to develop and increase the usability of cryptocurrencies. It’s a very delicate matter because some regulations are necessary. It’s up to the regulators to find the golden mean.
Before the crypto market has been driven by speculators and many crypto projects were valued far beyond the reasonable market worth. Fortunately, this trend has been already revised and now the market is waiting to regrow. Unfortunately, contrary to the assumptions underlying blockchain and cryptocurrency, without some regulations, they will not be able to develop further. In addition, the usefulness of cryptocurrencies is still strongly limited by their high volatility, which is why they are too risky means of payment. From this perspective, stablecoins are a very interesting project, and that’s where I see the chance to increase in the common ways of using cryptocurrencies.
LR: How do you adapt to such dynamically changing crypto market?
Michael: At Match-Trade, we look at the market from the perspective of B2B2C (business-to-business-to-client). When designing solutions for our clients, which are brokers and institutional clients, the needs and expectations of their clients and our software users are of key importance to us. In order to meet the expectations of the constantly growing community of blockchain and cryptocurrency enthusiasts, we are also improving our cryptocurrency exchange platform CoinMatch. Greater customization of the platform layout and a robust platform API to connect the broker’s own web interface to the CoinMatch system. And of course, we’ve added the most popular stablecoins.
LR: Are you planning to introduce new services to the offer this year?
Michael: Yes. We made the first important step in January. We have joined forces with Spotware and launched a new cTrader White Label solution. What distinguishes our solution on the market is that it offers the highest quality service and a relatively low entry threshold making it easy to implement and affordable even for start-up brokers.
cTrader platform is already well known for its stability and performance. Match-Trade offers a wide range of high-tech complementary services for brokers along with technological support. Offered White Labels will be completed with tools like integrated Client Office (expanded with CRM), crypto payment gateway or ultra-fast data feeds. We also guarantee seamless integration with any Liquidity Provider.
We have also developed a fully functional Manager for MT4/MT5 Bridge we offer to our clients. This extension for Bridge is the answer to inquiries coming straight from our clients. It’s a web-based system that allows managing multiple bridges and access features like data feeds filtration, quote/volume multipliers, advanced A/B Book risk rules, liquidity pool management, reporting system and many more.
LR: In what direction do you intend to develop your business?
Michael: Our strategy for the coming years assumes the introduction of new quality not only to provided solutions but also to customer service. We are looking for new solutions on the market but also internally. We are constantly expanding our IT department, which creates in-house technology. This year, we plan to organize Hackathon to get the biggest talents among programmers to work with.
At the same time, we are expanding the broker support department to provide our clients with constant support in the implementation and integration of third-party solutions. We are constantly developing as a company, this year we are even moving to a bigger office.
Recently we’ve been focusing on the development of the partner network by establishing cooperation with local representatives. This way we are able to expand the range of our products and offer comprehensive solutions tailored to our clients’ needs.
Our ambition is to facilitate running a successful business for our clients. We provide turnkey solutions, we advise and manage the implementation process. We even started working on our own market making strategies to bring more liquidity to our clients’ exchanges. Everything, so that our clients could focus on business development.
LR: Do you think that the fintech revolution is right behind the corner or is it still far in the future?
Michael: Fintech has for sure transformed the financial services industry shifting it towards innovation instead of catching up with clients’ needs like it used to be. More and more people are showing interest in Blockchain technology as it opens completely new opportunities for cross border remittances. The virtual currency was designed to be resistant to limitations resulting from the existence of state borders. In times of globalization, it is a real breakthrough. I truly believe it has all it takes to be called disruptive but it takes time till we can fully acknowledge it. And there’s still a lot of work to be done.