The increasing demand for liquidity in the Russian ruble (RUB) has provided a considerable drive toward increasing the sophistication of trading infrastructure between Moscow, Europe and North America, has resulted in Chinese authorities entering into a very rare practice indeed, in the form of a collaborative agreement on yuan and ruble, and prominent Russian venues such as the Moscow Exchange to rise to prominence among global peers.
Indeed, retail FX brokers are rapidly evolving their ruble-orientated offerings as a result, with Alpari today having announced it will increase the requirement for a minimum deposit for trading accounts denominated in Russian Rubles (RUB).
The changes come into effect on November 3, 2014, and will apply to Standard, ECN, PRO and PAMM accounts based on rubles. The new requirements apply to accounts open after November 3, 2014 and to accounts that have been opened but have not yet been activated, and the minimum deposit necessary to activate a Standard account with Alpari will rise from RUB 3,000 to RUB 5,000, a jump of 67%.
The minimum deposit necessary to activate an ECN account with Alpari increases from RUB 10,000 to RUB 15,000, a rise of 50%.
The requirement to activate a PRO account with the broker goes up from RUB 700,000 to RUB 1,000,000, a increase of 43%. Basically, one needs to be a millionaire to activate a PRO account with Alpari from next Monday.
Although the broker does not explicitly state the reasons for the trading conditions change, we dare to suppose that the change is provoked by the weakening of the Russian currency against the US dollar and the euro, with the decline particularly pronounced over the past two months. Analysts have been forecasting that the Ruble will eventually stabilize, however, the forecasts for the coming month or two are not rosy for Russia’s currency.
Minimum deposit requirements for accounts denominated in other currencies, like EUR and USD, will remain unchanged. To open a Standard account with Alpari, a trader will still need at least USD 100 or EUR 100. For ECN accounts the requirement will remain at USD 300 or EUR 300, while for PRO accounts the minimum demand will still be USD 20,000 or EUR 20,000.
You can find out more about the new trading conditions on Alpari’s website by clicking here.