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(This is Part 2 of our series on alternatives to MetaTrader in the wake of its removal from the App Store. Read Part 1 here.)
The White Label Option
Some of the liquidity-providing institutional brokers listed on Liquidity Finder also provide white label trading platform solutions, and these operate at the upper end of the market working with larger clients, such as more established brokers and mid-tier banks.
These white label platforms enable clients to offer their end users an interface with their own branding and institutional-grade features - including access to a very broad range of tradeable instruments, risk sharing / management solutions, plus built-in liquidity provision. They also tend to offer provision for broker client confidentiality, with the details of end users usually invisible to the white label supplier.
MT4 and MT5 aren't traditionally the natural point of comparison for these solutions, which tend to be targeted towards brokers and banks with significant flow. Instead they are often cross-shopped with building an in-house bespoke trading solution, which has the potential (or the perception of the potential) to offer greater flexibility long term in terms of instruments and liquidity sources.
However, in the disruption following MT4/MT5's App Store removal, all options are on the table for many brokers.
Below, we outline the most significant options for brokers considering a white label solution from the larger brokers.
FinaltoTrade
Finalto offer the FinaltoTrade platform, part of Finalto360’s technology solutions.
This multi-asset (FX, CFD and DMA) investment and trading platform can be white labelled and sub-white labelled for new native brands.
It comes as a web and mobile platform (iOS and Android), and includes advanced analytics, charting, and will soon also offer DMA equities, futures and exchange-traded cryptocurrencies.
Back Office Dealing functionality to manage risk and hedge books (A/B/A-STP) is included, in addition to a portal that enables traders to manage multiple platforms and to transfer funds through one shared wallet account with a single login.
Finalto also offer ClearPro, an institutional-grade GUI which provides access to FX, precious metals, commodities, indices, single stocks, ETFs, cryptos, NDFs, and will soon offer futures. This is a downloadable, web and mobile-based trading platform, and part of Finalto’s ClearVision technology. It can be white labelled for managing risk and hedge books with advanced risk parameters, and redistributing liquidity.
Paul Groves, Head of European Sales at Finalto, commented on the positioning of Finalto in the market to help retail brokers looking for an alternative to Metaquotes:
“Since the Covid-19 pandemic and 2022’s strong pickup in market volatility we have seen great interest in our technology solutions coming from a wide ranging audience. We offer the ability to increase efficiencies for both traders, Risk managers and Support staff.
“Additionally, we offer outsourced risk share solutions for partners who have P&L volatility, risk exposure or other balance sheet limitations and seek our solutions to assist them to better risk manage and monetise their flow.
“Finalto360 and ClearVision are key pillars of Finalto group’s offering.’
Commercials and associated fees: Setup and maintenance fees, which can be partially or completely offset based on the commercial opportunity of a partnership.
In-house liquidity only, or other providers available? Finalto state that they ‘Can source other liquidity providers for clients if the need arises’.
Saxo TraderGO
SaxoBank have a very well established white label offering, allowing clients to white label Saxo TraderGO, Saxo Trader PRO and the Saxobank smartphone App. Saxo's white label program provides multi-asset trading and ‘investment infrastructure’ for banks, brokers, fintechs, insurance companies and wealth managers, with an ‘undisclosed end-client operating model’. This is important to reassure brokers and others that end clients are not visible to their white-label provider.
An interactive simulation/demo of the Saxo Trader Go platform can be seen -> here.
The Saxo platform enables a broker’s clients to trade stocks, bonds, CFDs, FX, futures and options from a single margin account. More than 60,000 instruments are available, with integrated risk management.
Saxo also advertise that institutions such as Standard Bank, Banca Generali, and Mandatum Life are using the Saxo white label platform. I have personal experience of other banks and brokers using the Saxo white label trading platform very effectively.
In 2020, Saxo announced that 5 Danish Banks took Saxo’s white label solution, a big sign of confidence in the technology and the institution behind it.
And for brokers considering a white label arrangement but who would like to keep the door open to moving to owning their own technology in future, Saxo state that they have no objections to this process, although their experience is of very long term partnerships with white label clients, since “the ‘Buy it or build it?’ question has already been answered at inception”.
Typical client profile: Well established, regulated intermediary.
Commercials and associated fees: All commercials are on a case by case basis. Saxo state that their white label solution is ‘aimed at the more well-established business with substantial assets under custody, meaningful trading volumes and a large client base’.
In-house liquidity only, or other providers available? On-platform Saxo is the sole liquidity provider available. However, using the API, business clients can access bi-lateral trading relationships, (more details on this here).
Some customer success stories of businesses that have deployed Saxo’s white label solution can be viewed [here(https://www.home.saxo/institutional-and-partners/client-stories/overview)].
CMC Markets Connect
Recognised as the Best White Label Solution at both the Finance Magnates Awards and the Global Forex Awards in 2020 CMC Markets also offer a white label service to institutional clients through their Connect platform. CMC have now invested over $170 million in their trading platform, with a continued year-on-year investment of $10 million in maintaining it. This is a technology spend which is hard for most brokers to match - and CMC partner brokers benefit from this investment.
The white label service can be comprehensively branded as the broker’s own platform, and is what CMC call a ‘front to back modular solution, providing clients with the tools they need to build a totally bespoke and flexible offering’.
It offers the full range of instruments available to CMC’s own clients, including over 300 currency pairs, 10,000 single stock CFDs, main indices and commodities. In addition, brokers have access to fully customisable reporting and analysis.
End clients can also choose from more than 100 technical indicators and drawing tools, in addition to trading direct from charts.
CMC Connect offers a holistic white label solution as well as clients being able to connect seamlessly via our OpenAPI solution, providing them with true access to the full CMCs technology stack.
Richard Elston, Group Head of Institutional at CMC Markets, commented on interest in the market since news on MetaTraders’ removal from the App Store:
“We have had a definite up-tick in enquiries since the announcement of MT4 removal on the App Store, especially in the APAC region where we are engaging in many conversations with new clients around the platform.
“The Connect platform, powered by our Next Gen technology, has been stress-tested by thousands of clients. We cover off all the regulations, and offer 14,000-plus tradable instruments. It’s a totally flexible solution, making it a far more desirable option in the current environment given the MT4/5 conversations.”
Typical client profile: Richard Elston says that there is “no real ‘typical’ client”, and that they can serve “all financial market participants - from investment banks to MT4 brokers - due to the diverse portfolio of assets we offer.”
Commercials and associated fees: Each arrangement is on a bespoke basis depending on the client’s needs. Richard Elston explains that CMC, “Spec everything out per individual business case, and commercials are mapped out and agreed on the basis of this build.”
In-house liquidity only, or other providers available? They additionally state that since their access to deep liquidity is “derived from our institutional order book, underlying market liquidity and further supported by our unique market positioning with inclusion of our retail flow”, they believe that the access and depth of their own liquidity provision is “hard to beat”.
Swissquote Advanced Trader
Swissquote provide a white label of their retail-focused proprietary platform Advanced Trader, which offers FX and CFD trading with mid-sized banks/brokers as white label platform customers.
The Advanced Trader platform would generally mean taking liquidity from Swissquote, but the company says that a prime-of-prime relationship with Swissquote, where they facilitate access to other LPs, could be an option.
Swissquote have 60 white label trading partners, with their white label solution being fully customised to a customer’s brand.
More information on Swissquote's white label program can be found here.
X Open Hub
X Open Hub’s solution differs from others in that they offer a hosted individual server for each client, which has a number of implications for integrations and compatibility. For example, open front and back-end APIs enable easy migration to other vendors, plus integration with any and all CRMs, MAMs/PAMMs, IB systems or the client's office.
And the breadth of integrations extend to a number of SSO options, plus clients’ own chat, market news or education functions.
The trading platform itself is accessed via mobile, web and desktop applications, which can of course be fully branded.
Michal Copiuk, CEO at X Open Hub, when asked about the effect on interest in the X Open Hub platform since Metaquotes’ App Store removal, responded:
‘We currently receive a lot of requests from banks and well established brokerage houses. Some of them are looking for alternative solutions and some of them are willing to migrate their business to EU based technology and liquidity providers. We notice the trend that the companies are looking for well established and publicly listed partners.’
Typical client profile Regulated brokerage houses and banks. X Open Hub can also help open a regulated brokerage business for startups.
Commercials and associated fees The minimum monthly fee starts from US$1,000 per month. There is an additional fee of US$3 per US$1 million traded. Liquidity is offered in the package meaning that the client does not pay separately for both technology and liquidity.
In-house liquidity only, or other providers available? Alternative liquidity providers can be connected, provided that certain conditions are met. If a client really needs to hedge some flow, needs additional instruments that are not included, or a deeper order book, X Open Hub will consider adding additional LPs on a case by case basis.
Some final thoughts
White label platforms undoubtedly offer a sophisticated solution for brokers with the necessary firepower.
The broad range of tradable instruments, the built in firewalls between providers and end users, and the reassurance that major banks across the world have long histories of success with these platforms are significant points in their favour. So too is the significant investment made in the platforms' development, and their refined feature-set and interface following years of updates and improvements.
But for those brokers and banks planning for future acquisition, the ease of exit and a transition to an in-house trading stack will always be front of mind when selecting. We did receive assurance from the providers above as to how they can support this process, but it could still be a sticking point for those who feel they may outgrow the possibilities of white labelling sooner rather than later.
On the other hand - we know of a great many very long lasting white labelling partnerships, and we know that the system (particularly through those organisations listed above), can work very well indeed. Sometimes buying is better than building!
