Plans of a start-up broker in the midst of financial crisis

Target for 2009: Monthly deal size, 400 million euros

The Polish broker, that holds subsidiaries in seven European countries, has been officially launched yesterday in Romania. Its core business target is a minimum monthly deal size of 400 million euros by yearend, after a 3 million euros initial investment, said Victor Safta (photo), managing director of X-Trade Brokers Romania.

As for earnings, he said the company aims at achieving the profitability threshold this year.

The company provides trading services for various vehicles via two online platforms on international Forex market, commodities, and stocks. Furthermore, investors can trade CFDs (Contracts for Difference) for currency pairs, commodities, stocks or indices of all large stock markets of the world.

The lion’s share of investment will be used in organizing chargeless seminars for clients. “We have identified a narrow expertise in Romanian financial field, and this is why we intend to organize seminars, in order to ‘train’ the market”, Safta explained.

Furthermore, the company plans to draw Romanian importers and exporters to minimize the currency exchange risk through currency-pair CFD deals, this practice being very popular in Europe. “As of January, we have three Romanian importers who adopt three month-positions for euro-leu pair”, said the director of X-Trade Brokers.

The representative of the company said they would put off their entry in the BSE arena due to the shaky market conditions, as the extremely low flows are not even covering the costs.

The minimum amount for opening an account at X-Trade Brokers is 2,000 lei, discounting transactions is made via Romanian banks in local currency. The company has 11 employees in Romania and over 100 in all subsidiaries.

“X-Trade Brokers’ clients are both natural and legal persons. Given the profile of the trading vehicles, the company targets both individuals and companies with average and higher-than-average incomes,” said Victor Safta, director at X-Trade Brokers Romania.

The broker is authorized by Romanian National Securities Commission as financial investment company in the Member States, via European passport. Currently, the broker manages 30 active client accounts, although the activity will officially begin in February 15.

X-Trade’s CEO sees potential in Romanian market

Jakub Zablocki, X-Trade’s CEO says the reason for choosing Romanian market as expansion destination lies in the potential it has, but also because the segment can be better fructified in times of crisis, segment which is currently narrowly exploited in Romania.

“X-Trade Brokers has a series of challenging advantages, such as regional experience, an intelligent trading platform, and certification. Furthermore, unlike other brokerage firms headquartered in Europe and USA, offers the benefit of local presence: the bank accounts of the branch are opened in Romania, discounts with clients are conducted in local currency, and the funds of the clients are kept in a separate account and doesn’t leave the country”, Jakub Zabłocki pointed out.

He added that the total volume of deals assisted by X-Trade group reaches nearly 220 million euros a month.

“We believe that our business will develop at a fast pace, to exceed the 1 bln euro deal size by the end of second year of activity”, Zabłocki added.

He added that of all deals brokered by the company, nearly 70% are destined to Forex market, the remaining share being equally divided between the other vehicles, adding that the commodity market has significantly gained ground in the last year”.