Actionable content, trading platforms, engagement: tech experts’ comments from FinanceFeeds Cyprus FX Industry Seminar

How to get traders the right experience? What are the tech tools of tomorrow? Those were some of the questions discussed by the participants in a technology panel during the FinanceFeeds Cyprus FX Industry Seminar that took place on June 21, 2018 at the St Raphael Resort in Limassol, Cyprus.

The panel participants: Bazil De Bruyn of Autochartist’s Global Business Department; Haim Machluf, Sales Specialist at Leverate; and Moish Levin – Product Manager at Leverate, shared their views in a discussion moderated by FinanceFeeds’ CEO Andrew Saks-McLeod.

At the start of the discussion, Andrew Saks-McLeod mentioned Autochartist’s most recent success story and breakthrough towards engaging people – the actionable content.

Bazil De Bruyn said:

“At Autochartist we are very passionate about the traders’ journey and we want to help brokers to start seeing the industry the same way. What is more important is the type of content you provide to the trader”.

“What you really want is to provide content to your customer that builds that relationship so you can walk through the journey with him. You are grabbing him and saying “Come to my platform. I have something for you. You need to trade. You need to take action”, he added.

Commenting on the importance of various factors for engaging traders, Bazil De Bruyn said:

“Content is emperor. But it’s not just content, it’s what content you use as well. You need to be very specific about it”.

Haim Machluf replied that he did not like the notion that content is necessarily the king. “The trading platform is the king. People are engaging into platforms, not into content. Content is a very important minister”, he said.

Moish Levin noted there are various engagement measures. “People in the industry measure engagement with volume. This is the big KPI. There are other channels to get volume apart from content”, he said.

Regarding the right trading experience, Moish Levin emphasized the role of the so-called “comfort zone” for traders.

“I think that one thing that people are missing nowadays is putting the trader in the right, comfort zone. If the trader is in his comfort zone, he would do any actions that the broker wants”, Mr Levin said.

Andrew Saks-McLeod noted that traders need platforms with good design and that a platform has to be ergonomically good. Brokers cannot expect traders to get stuck in old-fashioned downloadable platforms, he said. So, the next question was whether actual mobile platforms are the future.

Moish Levin agreed. He mentioned many examples (even from other industries) such as augmented reality glasses and smartwatches. “We are going to make sure that everyone can trade from any place and any time and get the right exact notifications using marketing and we’ll be working on that”, he said.

With regard to notifications, Bazil De Bruyn stressed the importance of building a relationship with the client. Instead of bombarding traders with notifications, he said Autochartist offers a more moderate approach – traders get one push notification per day for the most probable trade.

Haim Machluf added that the client must be given a chance to create the environment – this involves the choice of analytical tools, notifications, etc.

Andrew Saks-McLeod emphasized that there are many traders who constantly demand new extras, functionalities and/or bonuses. Moish Levin agreed with him, saying that these demands will never end and that product managers and developers have to deal with such requests in very short terms. Andrew Saks-McLeod put the typical deadline for implementing novel functionalities and features at 2-3 months.

The discussion finished with some valuable advice from Bazil De Bruyn on how firms can stand out in this highly competitive and rapidly evolving environment. In terms of how brokers can differentiate themselves, he stressed the importance of APIs, which are capable of helping a broker differentiate itself.