Interview with Soft-FX’s Pavel Satsuk about the TickTrader platform
FNG Interview… The world of digital trading is constantly changing, following trends and shifts in the market. Brokers and exchanges strive to provide customers with as many benefits and advantages as possible in order to retain them, including technical tools which provide traders with new opportunities in FX and digital asset trading. We talked to Pavel Satsuk, CBDO of Soft-FX, the company that presented its own trading platform TickTrader, about what instruments are in demand by end-users and why the role of multifunctionality is more important than ever in the field of trading software.
FNG: Hi Pavel, and thanks for joining us today! Please let us know a little more about the TickTrader Trading Platform.
Pavel: TickTrader is a multifunctional trading platform that can become a reliable foundation for a brokerage or exchange business. We can state this with confidence because we meticulously honed every component included in the product, including the liquidity aggregation module, mobile, web and desktop applications, the API suite and the set of algorithmic trading tools. The TickTrader Trading Platform is thus a kind of Swiss knife with a rich set of tools, each of which can be customized to specific tasks and market requirements.
FNG: Can you tell us about the team behind the product that made all this possible?
Pavel: The creation of the platform involved a huge team, which included more than a hundred developers and market analysts. In fact, this product has about ten years of development and research behind it and some major investments. For a long time, we have been studying the market and competitors, looking at what business owners and end users (i.e. investors and traders) are not getting enough of. With TickTrader, our main goal was to make life easier for traders and managers alike.
FNG: What are the main features of the TickTrader Trading Platform?
Pavel: The key feature of the TickTrader Trading Platform is that it can be used for both margin and exchange trading: we have developed types of trading accounts tailored specifically for margin and spot exchange operations, and included. Additionally, we provided support for advanced order types (like IoC, Iceberg, Hidden, Stop-Limit), for those end clients who want to use complex trading strategies. You can add an unlimited number of Forex, stock, commodities, indices, and crypto digital trading instruments into the TickTrader platform and get liquidity for them via numerous ready-to-go connectors to liquidity providers.
FNG: How about the mobile version of the platform?
Pavel: The list of apps that are included in the delivery set includes web, Windows desktop, and mobile applications for Android and iOS. All of our customers receive branded versions of the apps that are placed in the corresponding app stores, including Google and Apple platforms.
FNG: The multi-asset trading platform business is indeed extremely competitive, and has become even more so in the aftermath of MT4 and MT5 being removed from the Apple App Store (and unavailable for white label). What makes the TickTrader Trading Platform Special? How do you differentiate it when you’re speaking with potential clients?
Pavel: As is probably clear from what has been said above, we consider our main trump card to be multifunctionality. TickTrader can cover both the exchange and margin segments of a trading business. We would also like to emphasize that we normally bundle the aforementioned liquidity aggregation module into the delivery package, which gives access to completely new possibilities for managing the quote flow. I would particularly point out the subsystem of filters that processes raw quotes from connected liquidity providers and delivers to the end clients the prices that correspond to the situation on the market and the administrator’s objectives.
Also, with the liquidity aggregator module, our client gets access to a powerful matching engine that enables end clients to generate internal liquidity and act both as price-takers and price-givers. This means that in addition to the liquidity you receive from external suppliers, you will be able to add your clients’ orders to the market depth and potentially reduce the expenses on the liquidity providers’ commissions.
I would also like to elaborate on the white-label issue you mentioned. With TickTrader Trading Platform and corresponding solutions that incorporate the product, it is possible to issue white label sublicenses and possibly boost earnings through increased trading volumes and extra commissions.
FNG: Tell us how sublicensing works in your case?
Pavel: In a very simplified approach, the framework may look as follows. Consider a customer who purchased our TickTrader Trading Platform or a solution that integrates this product. This customer can create a new sublicensee domain based on the TickTrader Trading Platform component. The sublicensee gets access to all client applications, including web, desktop and mobile, and the licensor, or customer who purchased our solution and provides services to the sub-licensee, increases their profits through expanded trading volumes and additional commissions.
FNG: Speaking of customers, which markets, and types of brokers, are you initially targeting with the platform launch?
Pavel: The level of the technical capability of the product is now such that it will suit any type of broker. However, I would like to bring up one important point. Because of its versatility and the features mentioned above, TickTrader is popular with crypto projects, specifically crypto brokers and crypto exchanges. As for the FX brokers, we note that they opt for a platform not instead of existing solutions, popular in the market, but as a complementary tool that can fill the gaps found in products like MT4 or MT5.
FNG: How do you see the FX and CFDs brokerage industry changing, specifically what brokers and traders are looking for? How does the TickTrader Trading Platform address these changes?
Pavel: We note that brokers and traders alike are looking for increasingly sophisticated means to achieve their goals and the basic feature set, while it should certainly be present on any platform, is no longer sufficient. That’s why we introduce components like Algo Studio, the module that allows the development and running of algorithmic trading systems. It comes with the preset of market-maker algorithms, which provide administrators the ability to manage price flow, liquidity, or pricing policies for derivative instruments. Advanced features integrated into the platform also include the Stock Events Module, which allows configuring operations on the trading platform depending on the stock corporate actions that occur at a particular point in time.
FNG: What else can we expect to hear from Soft-FX and TickTrader in the coming months?
Pavel: The TickTrader Trading Platform is definitely not a product that is frozen in time. Like our team, it evolves and grows with new features that meet the state of the market and client needs. We’re constantly plugging in new integrations that we announce in our newsfeed. But to anyone interested, we are ready to tell in detail about each component of the platform in a personal presentation.