Following last week’s addition of the ZAR/JPY currency pair by Pepperstone, Alpari is hot on the heels of the Australian brokerage, today adding six new currency pairs, one of which echoes the move made by Pepperstone.
The six new pairs all center around the South African Rand (ZAR), and are as follows:
USDZAR
GBPZAR
ZARJPY
AUDZAR
NZDZAR
EURZAR
These pairs are immediately available on Market, Pro and Spread Betting accounts with Alpari.
In June, Alpari added ZAR and SGD (Singapore dollar) to its list of account currencies, which already included GBP, USD, EUR, CHF and AUD. Alpari asserts that its wider choice of account currencies means that when clients deposit or withdraw funds in one of these currencies, they will not face any conversion rates.
At the time of adding the ZARJPY pair to its range, Pepperstone elaborated on the rationale behind adding the Japanese Yen and South African Rand by stating at the time that the combination of the South African Rand and the Japanese Yen is attractive to traders due to its swap benefits and the ability to engage in the practice of carry trading, which involves the buying of high interest bearing currencies against other currencies where the interest rate is very low, this way the trader earns interest through swap payments each roll-over.
Traders at Alpari will now be able to make use of the 5.75% official cash rate offered by the South African Central Bank versus the very low 0.25% cash rate offered by the Bank of Japan.
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