MetaQuotes loses Head of Sales & Operations with 8 years service to new full-solution provider – FinanceFeeds

The quasi-monopolistic nature of the off-the-shelf platform sector within the retail FX industry has been a moot point for several years among those who seek self-determination.

Indeed, since the latter part of the previous decade, MetaTrader 4 has dominated the global retail FX business among brokerages which do not develop their own platform, and has done so for several reasons which are not necessarily attributable to the quality and flexibility of the actual platform itself, but more as a result of ease of transferring customer bases between brokerages and the MetaTrader 4’s innate compatibility with important self-programmed Expert Advisers and ancillary services that are critical to brokerages due to their proliferation among high volume IBs and portfolio managers in the Asia Pacific region.

The downside of this is that value propositions have become very marginal and, as highlighted by FinanceFeeds in detail, a race to the bottom in terms of brand positioning and marketing.

Now, a positive step in the direction of creating more choice within the retail brokerage sector has taken place, as MetaQuotes, the developer of the MetaTrader platform range, has lost its Head of Sales & Operations Anthony Papaevagorou after eight years at the very most important operational and customer facing position within the most popular third party platform provider in existence.

Mr Papaevagorou was really the only commercial face of MetaQuotes throughout his tenure, the company’s optics being notoriously incommunicado, its senior management very rarely engaging with the very community from which the firm has derived so much market presence.

Whilst at MetaQuotes, Mr Papaevagorou was present at many well attended industry events, provided workshops relating to trading platforms that were relevant to brokerages globally, and took a pragmatic and knowledgeable stance when interacting with key industry participants.

During the advent of the move to MetaTrader 5 for all new brokerages, Mr Papaevagorou provided full detai to FinanceFeeds with regard to the customizable access to multi-asset live markets that will be available to brokerages, as well as the methodology which allows MetaTrader 5 server owners to provide their own liquidity solution to other institutions and retail brokerages.

“MetaTrader 5 is most certainly the way to go. I can elaborate on why it cannot be compared to MetaTrader 4, and I will go through the means by which MetaTrader 5 providers can connect go global liquidity providers.”

Why MT5?

Unlike MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5 is a multi-asset platform, allowing all types of markets including exchanges to be connected to one trading environment. Everything is unlimited so therefore brokers can work with unlimited symbols, groups and venues” said Mr Papaevagorou.

Mr. Papaevagorou further explained why the MetaTrader 5 solution is geared toward this multi-faceted trading environment alongside the PrimeXM XCore system. “For those brokers with a full system license instead of white label, full control over system settings is allowable as is the option to work with any liquidity provider of choice. This enables the brokerages to maximize their profits as they will not be sharing profits with third parties as they would be if they were white label customers.”

Presenting the crucial points that are relevant to PrimeXM XCore technology, Mr Papaevagorou highlighted the differentiation of MetaTrader 5 in this regard. “To start with, while viewing the MarketWatch function, the main advantage on MetaTrader 5 is that brokers can offer unlimited symbols. This is a great advantage with PrimeXM as this can be connected to multiple sources which means several thousand trading products, representing a versatile range whether its FX pairs, indices, metals, stocks, or commodities” he said.

One of the industry-wide perceived criticisms of a monopolistic approach is that the founders of such a company can internalize full control and only extend a limited amount of empowerment to those at the very forefront of the relationships between platform provider and broker and platform provider and liquidity partner.

This commercial ethos is detrimental to scalability long term largely because senior executives with no stake in a company with such a stronghold will reach a ‘glass ceiling’ and then move on, a case in point being Mr Papaevagorou’s appointment as Sales Director of Impact Tech Ltd, which was established in Cyprus by a group of executives from the financial & IT sector with the aim to provide turn-key solutions, by offering state of the art high tech products and services to cater the needs of Financial institutions around the world.

The company provides complete MetaTrader 4 and 5 white-label solutions for brokers as well as a CRM Solution for MetaTrader 4 and 5, as well as a white label cryptocurrency solution with a specific CRM, and enterprise tools for marketing and communication.

With his experience with brokerages, Mr Papaevagorou will be able to further the encouragement of platform development competition.

Mr Papaevagorou’s background is indeed one of good standing.

Joining MetaQuotes in 2010, he oversaw all sales activities of the company and managed the sales teams.

Additionally he was responsible for setting activity and revenue targets for the members of the sales team, whilst for several hears hosting a large number of MetaTrader 4 & MetaTrader 5 presentations to brokerages.

Prior to joining MetaQuotes, Mr Papaevagorou was Head of Sales & IT at TTCM Traders Trust betweem 2008 and 2010, joining the company from Barsystems where he was IT Manager from 2006 to 2008.

Mr Papaevagorou holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Nicosia.

At this time, when competition most certainly is part of the third party platform equation, resting on one’s laurels and maintaing a closed channel is perhaps a less than prudent approach.