Exclusive Interview with Nader Nurmohamed, COO of Hantec Markets

First of all, could you give us a quick snapshot of Hantec Markets’ business, including in which jurisdictions (regions) the brokerage is licensed and regulated?
Multi-regulated brokerage supported by regulated entities in the United Kingdom (FCA), Jordan (JSC), Mauritius (FSC) and St. Vincent & The Grenadines (FSA) with 11 physical offices spread across four continents. Our principle goal is to deliver an unrivalled trading experience by offering tailored solutions to meet the dynamic needs of our broad client base.
Could you tell us more about Hantec Markets’ liquidity mix and order execution model?
Our Liquidity comes from multiple international liquidity providers and banks, this allows us to provide competitive market execution with deep liquidity and enables us to offer best available pricing in the market to our clients.
Is there an ECN account option for retail clients, beside the standard spread-only account type?
Absolutely, our pricing is of an ECN model allowing us to give all our clients access to the most competitive tight spreads in the market.
At present, Hantec Markets offers its clientele MT4 and MT5 trading platforms for a range of devices. Do you plan to expand your platform offering in the future?
Developing and building upon our best-in-class offering remains a key strategic initiative given our client centric model.
We are about to launch our own trading app that will provide our traders a wider array of choices when selecting how they wish to execute their trades. Hantec Clients can place trades, utilise advanced charting tools and access both their trading and finance related history from the app.
Ensuring we can cater to provide a trading environment to suit traders of all levels has served us well. In particular, our social trading platform, Hantec Social, is becoming a significant part of our ecosystem and has been extremely well received by both sophisticated traders looking to become signal providers and our novice traders looking to build upon their learnings by following those with more experience.
As well as adding to our platform offering, expanding the range of tradeable asset classes/symbols, providing access to the latest trading tools and market research also help us stand out in the eyes of our clients.
Is Scalping and Hedging allowed for retail clients on your trading platforms and if yes, are there any restrictions traders need to be aware of?
Hedging is allowed for all clients across all products and our clients are regularly reminded that in times of severe volatility this can still have an adverse effect on spreads. We have a low threshold for scalping, this is to ensure we protect ourselves and our LPs from market abuse, and to ensure trading conditions remain optimal for all clients.
Your firm currently offers negative balance protection for retail clients. In this line of thought, what other valuable risk management tools are there for traders who sign up with Hantec Markets?
We are proud of this policy and it represents our commitment to providing a safe and stress-free trading environment for our clients.
Through our client portal area, we offer a number of trade management tools to increase our clients’ awareness of risk management. In addition to this, offering education to retail traders on how to manage investment risks remains integral to our overall service offering, as well as keeping them informed about market trends and news calendars.
Given the current environment of multi-decade high inflation, rising interest rates, geopolitical tensions and overall macroeconomic uncertainty, have retail clients become more wary of trading larger volumes in Forex and CFDs?
In fact it’s the opposite – these moments typically lead to volatility in the markets which creates opportunity for our traders to take advantage of.
It’s up to us to make sure they have all the right tools, and research to capitalise in a market environment at this stage of an economic cycle which we have all seen before.
Have clients begun transitioning from MetaTrader 4 and 5, both renowned as being a standard for Forex and CFD trading, towards some newer platforms such as the Robinhood trading & investing app?
We are constantly listening to our clients and for now MT4 remains the platform of choice for Forex and CFDs, albeit most recognise MT5 as second choice as it has some excellent features from a backend and client perspective.
Competition plays an important role in our industry, and ensures we continue to innovate and provide a trading platform of choice to all levels of traders.
Now, let us focus on the FX industry as a whole. In your view, will competition between online FX brokers continue heating up in the coming years, not only in terms of pricing, execution, client protection, trading platform and instrument offering, but on some new fronts maybe?
In such a saturated market, Hantec Markets is uniquely positioned to compete with both the smaller local brokers, as well as the international trading firms by offering the best of both worlds.
Barriers to entry remain relatively low (for now!) so competition is likely to remain fierce, albeit a number of hurdles remain if a new entrant wants build the longevity that Hantec Markets has with our 32 year history. Regulatory hurdles and management experience will continue to be key and this is what keeps the pool of quality brokers small.
Community engagement and having a real sense of ownership in the brand that clients want to associate with will play a growing role in the future and will provide a new form of competition not just between brokers themselves but also between the respective clients.
Next, let us talk about the Crypto market. With BTC/USD pair trading stubbornly within a relatively tight range for the past month or so, well below its historic peak from November 2021 of nearly $69,000, has client interest in this particular CFD diminished?
Demand for any asset class can swing wildly depending on factors ranging from volatility & liquidity or economic developments and wider geopolitical news – it’s just part of a cycle that we believe crypto will continue to display as the adoption of its technology continues to come in to the mainstream.
We still see a strong demand for BTC and other crypto pairs such as ETHUSD, and we have invested in improving our wider crypto offering to ensure that we have the most competitive spreads in the industry no matter what the behaviour of the asset class is.
In light of the FTX collapse, how does heightened Crypto market uncertainty affect Hantec Markets as a CFD provider?
Its an example of why managing your trading risk is so important but at just a very large scale.
For us, and our clients, it reassures us that Hantec Markets’ approach to running an online trading firm is the right one and is why have been around for more than 30 years. It shows the importance of choosing the right broker and ensuring your client money is held safely and protected.
Do you discern a shift in Hantec Markets retail clients’ preferred trading instruments? Are traders moving away from Crypto CFDs?
Please see response to Q.10
What about Crypto regulation? Do you expect that there will soon be a consensus among major regulatory bodies worldwide about how Cryptocurrencies should be treated (as Commodities, Currencies, Securities, etc.)?
Clearly it is on everyone’s radar now and the right regulation will only be a good thing for the industry. It’s required, but the question remains, how will it be regulated?
The debate around the treatment of this asset class continues, with NFTs also adding a new layer of confusion to the mix.
In your view, in what way Crypto regulation will affect prices of these assets?
I don’t like to speculate – if I had a crystal ball then I’d probably be on a beach somewhere!
And, one final question. Do you agree with the view that the future of money lies with Crypto?
One thing is for certain, crypto is here to stay and the underlying blockchain technology will become more common in terms of our interaction with it in our everyday lives.