IFX EXPO Dubai 2022: Your Bourse CRO Elina Pedersen talks B2B challenges, industry trends

After two days of business networking, we had the chance to set up interviews with an incredible lineup of industry leaders who pass through here this time of year.

Your Bourse, a leading trade execution technology company, has recently won three accolades. The London-based company was named the “Most Reliable Connectivity Provider,” “Most innovative B2B Service Provider – Matching Engine” and “Exceptional Risk Management Tools.”

FinanceFeeds Editor in Chief Nikolai Isayev asked Elina Pedersen, Co-CEO and chief revenue officer (CRO) at Your Bourse, what these awards represent for the company and, more importantly, what it means for their customers?

Ms. Pedersen explains that Your Bourse has taken home these prestigious awards based on performance results related to a wide variety of parameters. Overall, the recognition acknowledges excellence in providing a Platform-as-a-Service solution explicitly developed for FX, CFD and crypto liquidity, data analytics, reporting and risk management. 

As she states, “It’s a proof of the concept, so to say, and we can see that our customers really appreciate our effort in providing them with one-of-a-kind services.” 

Elina also highlighted that Your Bourse was honored to win these highly-regarded awards as they achieved the ‘five-nines’ availability, which confirms their services are fully accessible. Five-nines availability – or 99.999% – is the percentage of time a service is accessible to a user in a given period, usually defined as a year.

“We are one of the only companies in the industry who can offer 24/7 technical support. We do the maintenance, but the downtime is zero due to the way we’ve developed the solution. So it’s really just proving that our customers appreciate what we’re doing.”

We also asked Elina about their recent partnership with FastMT to release an MT4 data centre / MT5 access as a service product.

She explained that this alliance delivers optimal connectivity and ultra-low latency to MetaTrader brokers. Both companies have leveraged their extensive experience working in the FX/CFDs industry to develop a bespoke solution that responds to the needs of an MT4 / MT5 broker and their global client base. 

“They really have the lowest latency in the industry. For example, LD for Singapore is under 150 milliseconds. I think that’s just nonexistent in the industry and anywhere else,” she added.

MetaTrader has been in the retail FX market since 2005. We were curious to ask Your Bourse’s CRO if there’s always room for improvement and bring unique innovations to differentiate a MetaTrader offering. And, from a purely commercial perspective,  how these additions help Your Bourse stand out among its competitors in terms of services and functionality. 

“Well, personally, and as a company, we see, and we know that MT5 is just a superb product. Now, in order to complement all the features that it has, the back end used for trade execution must be as good as the platform itself. And of course, there is always room for improvement, especially with the back end.”

Elina added that as brokers continue to transfer activity to the MT5 terminal, it was imperative to increase the base of assets and products into the platform, including cryptocurrencies, in order to accommodate its entire customer base.

Despite cementing a leading place within a crowded industry, many B2B service providers face the same problems plaguing its competitors. Difficulty breaking into new markets has also driven many companies to look for alternatives.

We asked Ms. Pedersen what makes their offering stand out when it comes to existing and new brokers who are entering the market?

Elina acknowledges that the sector has become fairly saturated and overly competitive while grappling with toughening regulations. But there’s always plenty of room for any provider to distinguish themselves from the crowd.

“It’s actually very funny that you mentioned it. Just a few days ago, we were sitting down with one of our business partners, and he said: Elina, when you entered the market, there was definitely no more room for another connectivity provider. But now, he said, I can see how your company is transforming the industry and making a big change to even the level of service that customers expect. That includes the connectivity and reliability of the product, as well as customization, risk management and reporting features. So if you’re there to really solve problems for the customers and not just do something similar to what others have, there is always room for new companies to appear. 

Turning to crypto, Your Bourse’s executive spoke about their 24/7 offering and recent updates surrounding their crypto liquidity and risk management solutions.

Elina believes that a variety of reasons could be keeping who would-be crypto investors on the sidelines. It’s not only discomfort with the idea of investing in a virtual asset class, but there’s also a more practical hurdle: Their brokers simply don’t have logistics that help them make the leap from crypto-curious to crypto investor. That’s where Your Bourse steps in.

The company helps further lower the barrier for their brokers to access digital assets. For example, they allow these brokers to more effectively manage any execution parameters such as markups, spreads, routing rules, volume increments, and many more. 

“I think what’s really emerging a lot in the industry right now is that both traditional brokers and crypto brokers are moving into a more Neo financial hub. They continue to add more products to their portfolio in order to improve the whole lifespan, lifecycle and profitability of their clients to lock them in that ecosystem. So it’s about creating that holistic environment for the retail client to stay within that environment. And the trend we see is that a lot of clients are looking to bridge that gap between crypto and traditional marginal trading.”