“Mind The Gap!” – The life and times of a man on the move Episode 88

In this weekly series, I look back on what stood out, what was bemusing, amusing and interesting during my weekly travels, interesting findings within the FX industry and interaction with an ever-shrinking big wide world. This is purely observational and for your enjoyment

At this time, charity and business opportunity can go together.

This morning, I was walking along an innocuous residential street in East London, noticing that in the first day of the year in which the new season appears to be really upon us, there were many people sitting in their front yards, or walking in solitude through the nearby park.

Social distancing has become so ingrained into the psyche of the populace, that the fear of being apprehended by the uniformed enforcers of what has now become a global dictatorship is overshadowing the real damage – destitution.

I had driven to this particular neighborhood to go to a grocery store, and as I returned to my car, a quietly spoken middle aged man exited one of the houses in the street, and approached me, nervously asking me if I could spare some money for him to feed his family.

I obliged, and he was very grateful and apologized for asking, however in this time of need we need to help each other in order to maintain the fabric of what will quickly become a fallen society if the powers that be continue to strip the world of its livelihood.

I stopped for a chat. The gentleman told me that he had lost his job, as have hundreds of millions of people around the world, and that although there have been promises of government support, the offices are closed, lines jammed solid with millions of new welfare claimants and therefore there is no flow of cash into the hands of the public.

In the end, there will be no public funds.

This is the first time in my life that I have seen anyone come and literally beg for money who lives in a first world country and has a home of his own and until recently had an income. As we shook hands and parted ways after a very interesting conversation, a neighbor told me that asking people for help in the street is now becoming common.

Hardly surprising, there is no economy due to the treachery that has been forced upon the global populace.

So, just a few minutes later I arrived home and began to think of ways that we can do our bit as an innovative financial services industry sector which has the ability to adapt very quickly to market demands and circumstances.

We have seen all kinds of differences in the financial markets over the years, and our astute leaders and R&D experts have quite often navigated them with aplomb and given affirmation to Plato’s well known adage that “Necessity is the mother of invention”.

The FX brokerage business is designed purely and specifically to bring the global financial markets, in as close to real-time format as possible, into the living rooms of the world’s population, and thanks to a highly developed hosting, VPS and market integration infrastructure formulated by global giants such as Equinix, and made industry-specific by very clever solutions developed by oneZero, Integral, DevExperts, Spotware, and a number of companies with their own proprietary infrastructure such as IG, CMC Markets, Saxo Bank and Swissquote, we have the ability to turn the future and fortune of millions of people around.

Many of the traditional businesses that have been ordered to shut down all over the world by the heavy handed authorities will not be able to reopen. They will have lost far too much revenue to meet their operating costs, and millions of people will be without a livelihood, both employers and employees.

Therefore, we need to be the ones to empower and replace it. The world from now on is an online world.

Handing that donation to the needy gentleman in the street this morning made me think, what if that was £2000, and a trading account was attached to it, and I had instead of having a social conversation, gone into his house and showed him how to use a trading platform?

We as a global industry could empower millions by giving them the tools to be financially free.

If we are going to witness the birth of a totally online economy worldwide, surely the FX industry and electronic brokerages should be spearheading it.

I think charity could turn into a business opportunity here. As more and more people globally begin to find themselves asking for handouts from passers by, a good idea would be for brokerages to invest in the community as well as invest in their brokerage business by offering a trading account with some real funds in it, and a full course on trading.

There is now a captive audience. People are at home, under lockdown, worrying about their financial future. There is no bailout or backup plan and no government magic wand. There will be more lockdowns in future, as this has proven to show governments worldwide that they can literally destroy the economy and ruin people’s lives without a single protest.

A good investment from any brokerage now would be to give trading accounts with actual real balances to people, and then teach them to trade on a live market, with low leverage, making a steady start with correct execution according to proper price feeds.

No churn and burn, just good encouragement and quality training, and a small investment in new clients which could lead to customers for life.

Now has never been a better time. No potential client can say he has too much to lose, or does not have time to speak to an FX broker. They have plenty of time, and have very little to lose for the foreseeable future.

If each broker in the world was able to offer $1000 live accounts, with full training and connectivity to a live market, without using dodgy ‘mentors’ and actually offering properly tested in-house strategies or algos, we would be doing a huge amount to not only re-empower the people and give financial independence to millions globally, defeating this dictatorship, but we would also be strengthening the FX industry a thousand fold.

If this could work, we would all take a place in history as the solution to a global fiscal problem, and wouldn’t that be a great thing to be remembered for by long term, loyal customers?

Wishing you all a super week ahead.