Retail clients in China are not traders, they are investors and the Introducing Broker (IB) is often larger than many retail brokerages to which business is referred. In China, for example, which is a nation in which many of the larger MetaTrader 4-orientated brokers derive considerable business, MetaTrader 4 is the platform of choice because of the method by which business is conducted between Introducing Broker networks and retail clients. There is, however, a far more important matter to address, this being the consequences of the demise of MetaTrader 4 and the potential empowerment that this will give to important FX industry participants in very lucrative regions of the world who until now have been bound by a necessity to stick to MetaTrader 4 due to its EA compatibility – and in many cases that was its sole attraction – and now having it forcibly removed, will seek other avenues which will ensure that they have a far less dependent future. The MetaTrader 5 platform requires only one server for multiple locations, hence there would be no need to own costly servers in each division of a brokerage globally. That may sound very disruptive to brokerage operations, but there are some upsides. Today’s sudden announcement by MetaQuotes explains that the company will stop issuing new licenses to new brokerages, although the MetaTrader 4 platform can continue to be used by existing customers.īrokers who are already using the software will not be able to expand their operations on the platform, as no new servers will be issued in any capacity. On the other hand, it could be argued that those operating with a very much off-the-shelf system may well have gained cheap and easy access to a very lucrative market – a MetaTrader 4 white label license costs just $5000 – but are not masters of their own destiny, something that the removal of the software by its manufacturer is testimony to, and are now in a position where they offer almost identical customer experiences in a market which has ever increasing costs and bureaucratic considerations, hence having to be extremely competitive on just spread and commission in order to get ahead of over 1000 identical competitors is increasingly becoming a squeeze. On one hand, MetaQuotes, the platform’s manufacturer, has empowered 1231 retail entities which have not had to invest a single cent into development of their own trading systems, and since 2004 has been the de facto platform for brokers wishing to onboard new customers who are already familiar with a specific system, and also has been the mainstay of vast automated trading entities in the Asia Pacific region whose use of self-developed EAs (trading robots) have been designed around the MetaTrader 4 platform. The MetaTrader 4 platform embodies both of these contrasting extremities, and today is the day that marks the end of the road for the most ubiquitous trading platform in the world. Some say familiarity breeds contempt, others say that he who boldly accepts change when nobody else does is foolish. Yes, you reap what you sow by not having your own infrastructure and by having a short term mindset, but a software provider that is this integral to the industry’s fabric – and in MetaQuotes case this can be considered absolutely integral on a monopolistic scale – pulling the plug in this fashion should be a sharp and harsh lesson to all of us in any capacity of the industry.
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