LeapRate interview…Peter Tatarnikov has 20 years of experience in the forex industry. His career began as a trading desk assistant in 1999 and in 2003 he became Chief Dealer in one of the largest retail Forex brokers. With In-depth knowledge of FX operations and high managerial skills, Peter reached a COO position at New York based Forex Club LLC in 2006 and in 2010 he became CEO.
In his career, Peter has designed and held more than 200 seminars on Forex Trading. In his book “Entries & Exits”, professional trader and author of a dozen books Dr. Alexander Elder included Peter’s trading strategy. Peter’s professionalism and commitment have made him a known FX market commentator and spokesperson for the retail FX industry.
He sat down with LeapRate to talk about the Financial Commission and how it has been managing through this challenging period of global uncertainty.
LR: Hi Peter and thank you for joining LeapRate today. Can you tell us more about yourself and the Financial Commission?
Peter Tatarnikov
Peter: I started my career in 1999 as a trading desk assistant and as my experience and knowledge grew I moved into more senior roles including Chief Dealer, COO and later CEO at one of the largest retail Forex brokerages at the time. During those years I also spent time educating traders, having conducted over 200 seminars. The Financial Commission came about when I realized that our industry was lacking some credibility and trust in the retail space, especially considering the disparity between regulated and non-regulated companies in our industry almost a decade ago. I realized that an independent dispute resolution body could help both traders and brokers, but more importantly help to improve the credibility of our industry within global financial markets, which was still young compared to equities, futures and the like.
LR: What is the primary focus of the Financial Commission? What is special about it?
Peter: The main service provided by our organization is the ability for traders to receive free, unbiased and independent help with any situation that may arise with their online broker and receive a balanced and informative resolution to their issues from a group of industry professionals. In essence, we provide a mediation service between online brokers and their customers when both parties cannot resolve a situation on their own using our external dispute resolution.
For brokers our service provides an opportunity to highlight a high level of transparency and commitment to best business practices, which is extremely important to many companies in our space today, especially those companies which are relatively new in the Forex industry.
We also realized back in 2013, when the organization was formed, that not all jurisdictions where brokers are registered provide mechanisms for external dispute resolution as compared to established regulatory regimes in the US, UK and Australia for example. As a result, we realize that our service provides a certain level of credibility to Forex trading in general, with many people interested in FX trading for the first time contacting us on a daily basis to find out the best ways of choosing a broker to trade with and most importantly, making sure they are joining a legitimate broker and not a possible scam.
LR: What is the nature of disputes that the Financial Commission deals with?
Peter: Our organization is really able to handle any situation related to self-directed retail Forex and CFD trading. Having processed over 1,000 complaints just last year, our staff and Dispute Resolution Committee are experts in various types of complaints – from trading and execution, to financial and legal matters that may be in dispute between the parties. We have the ability to independently check and verify order executions and pricing, as well as other information pertaining to retail FX and CFD trading to make sure traders’ interests are protected.
We also provide certification services to trading platform providers, including collective investment technology, such as copy trading to ensure that the software and technology used by investors meets commonly accepted industry standards. Finally, we also certify education providers who are committed to using a balanced and professional approach, without any misleading information regarding risks and rewards of FX trading.
LR: You must have some insight into how the global markets have been responding to the coronavirus. Are there any thoughts you might be able to share?
Peter: Looking at our monthly operations data, which you can review on our website, our industry definitely saw a huge influx of new traders on Forex and CFD markets during the early stages of Covid-19 disruptions around the world this spring. This included traders from traditional equities markets, as well as completely novice people looking to take advantage of massive global volatility. As the summer months progressed we saw equities markets rebound and some Covid-19 impacts ease, but many large online brokers are reporting a continuation of heightened trading activity which was extremely high in previous months. The upcoming US election and continued uncertainty regarding Coronavirus may lead to another influx of trading in FX and CFD as we go through the fall and winter months.
Experienced writer and journalist, working in the global online trading sector, Steffy is the Editor of LeapRate. She has previous experience as a copywriter and has been with the company since January 2020. Steffy has a British and American Studies degree from St. Kliment Ochridski University in Sofia.
