FinanceFeeds to launch fully interactive Chinese language FX industry news, served via WeChat and web from within China

China is a futuristic and highly advanced nation in which the electronic trading industry within its domestic orders has become a tour de force within a very short time indeed.

FinanceFeeds has long recognized that China represents the pinnacle of retail multi-asset electronic trading and has committed substantial resources over a long period of time toward extensive research within mainland China, across the entire national network of electronic trading entities ranging from vast portfolio managers in second tier development towns responsible for managing over $300 million in client assets and trading 90,000 lots per month from plate glass offices with in excess of 100 staff that in some cases dwarf the brokerages in the West to which they send their order flow, right through to Chinese hosting firms, institutional prime of prime brokerages, technology partners and large scale fully Chinese divisions of long established Western brokerages.

The only way to conduct research and gain full and detailed understanding of how the Chinese FX industry works from the ground up is to invest time and resources in spending time in China, in various provinces, with industry figures that will demonstrate how everything is structured, from retail traders’ relationships with all-important introducing brokers, right the way through to how connectivity to the markets and liquidity is provided.

FinanceFeeds has extensively traveled China, and has forged relationships with key entities in the country, hence our opinion and perspective has become a reference point internationally as a result of extensive and detailed research into the future direction of China’s retail FX business.

In order to expand further on our extensive research and vital connections and sources within China, FinanceFeeds is preparing to launch a Chinese news source for the electronic trading industry within China itself, which will be live within one month from now.

This vital extensi0n of FinanceFeeds’ existing service embodies our ethos of investigative, fully detailed reporting from within the industry based on detailed research across all sectors of the industry in order to provide vital information to our valued audience and partners, which consist of senior executive-level professionals in the multi-asset electronic trading industry across the retail and institutional sectors.

FinanceFeeds will host the entire service from within mainland China, and will serve the Chinese readership with detailed, investigative reports from within mainland China’s burgeoning industry as well as vital information from the Western entities in prominent regions in order to play a significant part in providing vital information for Western and Chinese firms wishing to conduct business together, that being a very important dynamic for the future within this industry.

In terms of structure, FinanceFeeds’ Chinese service will be comprehensive, and as is very important in China, interactive. For this reason, it will be operated via a WeChat official service, this being the right and proper method by which to serve a Chinese B2B audience, as every brokerage and media entity in China has a dedicated WeChat-based service because WeChat is used as a primary channel in China for all business activities.

In addition to the WeChat service, FinanceFeeds will have a fully Chinese-hosted website, providing Chinese and overseas industry news, all provided in the Chinese language, and available across China without limitations due to its internal hosting inside China and our participation with the hosting entity in China which is subject to the required level of government supervision.

For brokerages, technology providers and integration firms that make up the entire infrastructural architecture of the retail trading environment, only those with actual presence in mainland China, with physical offices, hosting, and a Chinese website based in China which is connected to Chinese payment facilities and has partial Chinese ownership or a joint venture agreement in place will be able to conduct their business with Chinese retail customers and IBs in future.

In January this year, FinanceFeeds CEO addressed 450 Chinese FX industry senior executives in Shanghai, all of whom concurred with regard to this:

“We are speaking today about the new ways that media in China will have to be used in order to attract and maintain a sustainable client base as well as organically grow any business, and from my research, the only method now is to concentrate on media campaigns that are based in China, originate from Chinese entities – meaning Chinese hosted and partially owned subsidiaries of Western brokerages or technology firms, and not to make any media campaigns that focus on China, from outside China” – Andrew Saks-McLeod, CEO, FinanceFeeds

The reason for this is that nowadays, with large introducing brokers in regional towns and cities that are highly astute and operate offices with in some cases over 100 staff and perform every possible activity that a retail brokerage itself would perform including portfolio management via MAM accounts with in house money managers, full payment and withdrawal services, back office and customer relations departments and a customer-facing sales team, the Chinese retail trader is today more empowered than ever, yet totally focused on the relationships with large IBs.

There is no point at all in purchasing football sponsorship, or buying media remotely from outside China, as not only has this been severely restricted by Baidu’s clampdown on OTC derivatives firms from abroad, but the high costs and difficulties in knowing where to position such media will be further thwarted by the inability for the increasingly small number of clients that would click on any firm with media hosted outside China rather than deal directly with their existing firm to send their funds overseas.

Many companies are hosted locally and have now become vast household names across mainland China, and are free to be able to use local and national Chinese media channels to attract and maintain a relevant audience without restriction on conversion via advertising or transfer of capital to trading accounts, thus, in today’s world, the only means of using the media correctly is to do as companies that have already taken the steps of founding joint ventures or have opened Chinese offices, with contenders in the future being fully Chinese entities.

Joining FinanceFeeds in Shanghai was a senior executive from Chinese cross-platform mobile messaging firm WeChat, which is very similar to WhatsApp in its functionality, however is for the domestic Chinese audience and unlike WhatApp, is a primary business tool in China. China has 895 million mobile internet users, and almost nobody uses email. Every business transaction and update is conducted via WeChat, hence our decision to embody that as a mainstay of our Chinese service.

WeChat has become a vital tool in use among all introducing brokers, liquidity providers, technology partners and brokerages across China. FinanceFeeds has met with some of the largest introducing brokers and brokerages across the country, all of whom use WeChat as the main source of media as well as connection with their customers. It is quite clear that the Chinese FX industry is reliant on developing massive WeChat networks, regardless of the size of their business or amount of assets under management.

This, in itself is another indicator that having presence in China in terms of full operational capacity is the only way ahead.

No longer are there any more dialogues about Western firms buying institutional providers in China as had been the case last year. Instead, Western brokerages are focusing on increasingly basing their operations in Mainland China, which is absolutely evident across all sectors, and will prevail as China continues to become a self-sufficient FX industry powerhouse.

Image: HangSeng Road, Shanghai. Copyright FinanceFeeds