FNG Exclusive Interview… Money Managers have been vital to retail brokers for many years. However, the significant increase we have seen in volatility in recent months has meant they have become even more important and heavily relied on by clients who lack experience in trading.

Money Managers use a MAM (also known as a PAMM) to trade on a master account and allocate trades to 10s or 1000s of sub-accounts – so with the increasing importance of Money Managers comes the increasing importance of selecting the right MAM.

FNG talks today to Tom Higgins, Founder & CEO of Gold-i about what to look for in a MAM and why the Gold-i MAM for MT4 and MT5 is one of the most successful products in its portfolio.

FNG: Hi Tom, and thanks for joining us today. Why does Gold-i’s MAM stand out in the industry?

Tom: A MAM is a fantastic product for enabling all traders to receive the same price at the same time whilst also benefiting from the expertise of the Money Manager – someone with a wealth of trading experience and access to tried and tested algorithms and Expert Advisors. If something goes wrong with the MAM, however, because of either poor coding or product unreliability, then the broker ends up with thousands of trades to correct, causing significant issues. The most important things, therefore, that a broker should look for in a MAM are reliability and performance. Is it going to respond quickly and offer out the right price? And is it going to do it reliably so that the Money Managers’ trades to thousands of sub accounts are all going to be allocated correctly?

Gold-i focused on reliability and performance from the outset when developing our MAM for MT4 and MT5. On top of that, we have built a really good graphical interface so that Money Managers have a very clear overview and can see the trades that have been allocated out. The combination of reliability and performance, the bedrock of our product, and our graphical interface, gives the Gold-i MAM the edge.

We know it stands out in the market because we have a regular queue of brokers wanting to move to Gold-i’s MAM after having a poor experience from other providers, particularly in terms of reliability or because MetaTrader freezes whilst their MAM is allocating to large numbers of sub-accounts. Our MAM is a high performance, enterprise-grade product that has been developed over 12 years which doesn’t cause any slow-down, even when allocating to multiple thousands of accounts.

Another advantage of our MAM is that we offer a fixed fee per MetaTrader server rather than a transaction fee, so clients know exactly what they are going to pay – and there’s no installation fee either. The fixed fee doesn’t just give brokers access to one Money Manager, it gives access to hundreds of Money Managers and tens or hundreds of thousands of sub accounts.

FNG: How quickly can a MAM be up and running?

Tom: One of the key things about the Gold-i MAM is that it is a completely standalone product. It will work with any liquidity management platform. Whether you need an MT4 or MT5 MAM, you simply install it, provide the details of where the master and sub accounts are, and it will immediately start working. It is so quick that you can be up and running within an hour or so.

FNG: How has the Gold-MAM evolved since you initially launched it?

Tom: We have a continual focus on ongoing development to ensure it remains robust, fully customisable and with all the required features including PAMM (Percent Allocation Management Module) and LAMM (Lot Allocation Management Module). In fact, we have developers working virtually full time on our MAM, adding functionality, testing it and introducing new features. When MetaQuotes makes changes to MT4 or MT5, we need to make changes to our MAM so that our product continues to allocate trades reliably.

FNG: Asia is renowned in our industry for its large number of Money Managers. Where else do you see demand for your MAM?

Tom: We have a global client base. You tend to get more Money Managers where there are large populations and high numbers of retail traders – so Asia is very popular for Money Managers and our MAM is available in Simplified Chinese. We anticipate significant demand for our MAM from brokers in the MENA region which is currently seeing a major increase in trading activity. Our product is multi-asset so it’s great for FX, indices and cryptocurrencies, which also makes it very popular.

FNG: What kind of feedback do you get from clients?

Tom: Glowing! They rate the product very highly, particularly the wide variety of allocation methods, and the levels of support we provide. The only time people ever leave our MAM is if their business has changed and they don’t have Money Managers any more so don’t actually need the product. However, there have been many instances when the business line has returned, they need Money Managers and they come back to us – which is a great endorsement of the product. There’s no installation fee so it’s really easy for returners to get up and running again.

FNG: How key is the Gold-i MAM to your growth strategy?

Tom: Very! Money Managers are a vital part of any brokerage looking to attract a diverse range of client traders, and we are one of the few technology companies in this space offering enterprise grade MAM software across multiple asset classes.