FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that B2B/B2C forex firm TopFX has launched two new modules called TopFX Portal and TopFX Pay. TopFX Portal is the company’s proprietary CRM for onboarding retail clients, while TopFX Pay is an in-house developed cashier, fully integrated with other payment solutions.

Why launch these two new products now?

How does TopFX see recent competition between the MT4 and cTrader retail trading platforms, both of which it offers?

How has the COVID-19 crisis affected the Retail FX sector, and TopFX in particular?

We went to the source and spoke with TopFX CEO Alex Katsaros on these topics and lots more. Here is what he had to say.

FNG: Hi Alex, and thanks for joining us today. Please let our readers know a little more about TopFX Portal and TopFX Pay, and why you’ve launched them.

Alex: Hello, it’s great to be with you today.

TopFX Portal is the CRM system our retail clients onboard at. It’s integrated with both cTrader and MT4, and all KYC is done on the spot. It features a single introducing broker link for both platforms, multiple rebate plans, multilevel functionality for Introducing Brokers, fund transfers between accounts, and chat.

On the B2C side, we offer clients the ability to trade both on cTrader and MT4, and for that reason, we required a CRM that could be seamlessly integrated with both platforms. Having our partners’ needs in mind, we wanted to create a simpler process for the onboarding of their clients.

Indeed, TopFX Portal, our proprietary CRM, allows Introducing Brokers to use a single IB link to onboard clients on both our platforms. We wanted to take advantage of all cTrader features via a good integration. That would give us a competitive advantage because it’s a platform that even though it’s much newer and feature packed than MT4, it’s not utilized as much. We could have gone the usual way and used one of the many CRMs on the market, but I saw that with the level of customization required, it’s easier to just build our own from the ground up. This way we would be able to provide our clients with the best customer experience while having the flexibility to offer our custom features and execute our acquisition strategy.

TopFX Pay is our in-house developed cashier and is fully integrated with our payment solutions. It offers us the flexibility to add and remove payment methods on the spot, as well as configure them by country and provide security and redundancy to our clients.

We initially implemented cashiers from other vendors, but eventually decided that they were not an adequately efficient solution for us. It usually took too much time to integrate with payment solutions or had too many technical problems. We again realised that it makes more sense for us to develop our own, so as to prioritise our needs accordingly.

FNG: Which type of clients are you targeting for each?

Alex: TopFX started 10 years ago as a Liquidity Provider. Our liquidity business is still going strong, and we have recently expanded into the retail side of CFDs trading. We will utilise TopFX Pay and TopFX Portal both in our retail and institutional business. In the retail business, clients will onboard and manage their accounts through TopFX Portal while their transactions (deposits & withdrawals ) will be completed via TopFX Pay.

On the B2B side, we will be offering these products as part of our “TopFX All-in-One Broker Solution”, which is a complete package of services to launch and operate a CFD brokerage. It consists primarily of our Liquidity and the full cTrader platform suite and then brokers can optionally add TopFX Pay, TopFX Portal, bank accounts and more.

FNG: What changes have you seen in the FX industry over these past few months since the COVID-19 crisis began? And how has it affected business at TopFX?

Alex: It’s no secret that the CFD industry has been positively affected by COVID-19. People stay at home more, so every service that provides home recreation is doing fine. Streaming services, online shopping, gaming and trading have all experienced a surge of activity. On top of that, the turbulence in the markets from Covid, the volatility in the USD stock markets, the oil collapse and the gold rallies, means that there are more opportunities for traders, hence there is more volume.

Lastly, clients who wanted to give trading a go for supplementing their income, or for a living found the chance to try this out while social distancing and home isolation instead of postponing it further. The one negative outcome from Covid that affected the CFD industry as much as the rest of the industries is that all trade shows, expos, seminars and business trips were cancelled, thus limiting networking opportunities and growth in different markets.

FNG: You offer both cTrader and MT4 trading. How would you describe the evolving competition between these two platforms?

Alex: MT4 is really showing its age. It’s impossible for a platform that was developed 20 years ago and has frozen development to compete with cTrader which reached its maturity around 5 years ago, but is still leveraging its technologies and framework to roll out amazing features like the recent symbol-centric approach with the active symbol panel, the accommodation of trade, copy, automate and analyze functionalities in the same interface, the new portfolio management system via the copy functionality, its presence in all devices etc.

At the same time however, it’s really difficult for people who have been trading with a platform for all this time to move on. MetaQuotes was the first in the CFD business to build this ecosystem around their platform with custom indicators, expert advisors, introducing broker functionality, PAMM, etc. Traders find it hard to switch because they will have to start all over again. This has even become a problem for MetaQuotes now because as you may know they’ve been promoting MT5 for around 10 years and they even stopped offering MT4 to new brokers, but still many traders and brokers refuse to move on.

FNG: What else can we expect to hear from TopFX in the coming months?

Alex: Our biggest focus right now is the launch of our brand new retail website.

At the same time, we are working very hard on our introducer multi-level functionality in the TopFX Portal, adding even more payment methods – we’ve got the whole world quite covered now – and expanding to new countries with local teams. We are looking forward to expos starting again so we can meet as many of our clients up close and start new partnerships.