Russia-based retail forex broker Alpari has announced that its FX trading volumes in May declined slightly from April, coming in at $89 billion.
However May did see growth in volumes of currency pairs GBPUSD (+ 8%) and EURJPY (+ 19%), each of which saw a lot of volatility ahead of this month’s Brexit vote. However overall volumes were most affected by the bellwether EURUSD, which saw lower volumes in May due to low volatility.
Alpari also noted that in May MetaQuotes Software released the long-awaited MetaTrader 5 platform, including the possibility of multi-directional hedging trades. Alpari was the first broker in the market to offer the new MT5 version. In May, the number of accounts opened for trading on MT5 showed significant growth.
We also reported that Russia’s Duma is considering changes to the country’s Forex law, which may limit leveraged FX trading to wealthy clients only. In the meantime, Alpari – which sees a good portion of its volumes from Russian clients – has yet to receive its license from the Bank of Russia. Only 3 Russian Forex Broker licenses have been issued to date, to TeleTrade, TrustForex, and FINAM Forex.
