The first stage of the plan, according to Skowronski, was expand beyond retail by opening up to institutional clients: “A little over a year and a half ago I approached Andrey about introducing an upscale solution to Alpari’s high-net-worth clients and venturing into an institutional offering, which they ended up launching in January this year. Without any marketing or salespeople, the Alpari Direct and Direct Pro client base has grown surprisingly fast organically. Since joining Alpari in June of this year, I have made strategic hires in Boston, New York and Europe to expand Alpari’s institutional offering and capitalize on the company’s growth.”
He goes on: “We have split our institutional offering into two departments: the Margin group and the Prime Broker give-up model through the Credit group. The margin group focuses on our Alpari Direct and Alpari Direct Pro platforms. The credit group is going head to head with the likes of Hotspot, FXCM Pro and other ECN brokers and technology vendors. We’ve seen quite a bit of growth in this area, which I believe has a lot to do with Alpari’s reputation. People see Alpari as an alternative to other brokers who have become a bit stale when it comes to current technology trends.”
The next step is for Alpari to expand its global footprint; it already has offices in New York, Boston, Moscow, Frankfurt, Dubai, Mumbai and Shanghai and headquarters in London. The firm is planning to strengthen its Asian presence by opening an office in Australia in December, as well as one in Singapore or Hong Kong in 2011.
“Alpari really hasn’t touched the Asian market yet, especially in Japan and Southeast Asia,” says Skowronski.
“I have strong expertise in Asia and this was an area I knew I could make an immediate impact. When I was at Currenex, our retail group saw 50% to 60% of its income coming from the Asian market. So it’s really an area we need to develop.”
Another key area that Alpari is building on is technology. Vedikhin says that Alpari is launching the MetaTrader5 platform by the end of the year, making it one of the first FX brokers to do so.
“MetaTrader4 was an excellent system, designed to have one server to handle tens of thousands of online connections. But it’s lagging because we’re growing so rapidly and we have hundreds of thousands of connections.
“MetaTrader5 is designed so we can add multiple servers but it is invisible for clients because they connect to the same IP address; behind the scenes we are adding as many servers as we want to cope with the load. It makes our lives easier.”
To Skowronski, perhaps one of the most exciting opportunities since joining Alpari is building a strong US client base. “The US market is dominated by a few key players. Does Alpari have a chance to compete? Absolutely. We will continue to grow in the US but will remain cautious until the US regulatory picture becomes clearer. Up until now, Alpari’s focus has always been in Europe, where we are a market leader. Our competitors in the US have been scrambling to open offices in the UK, whether it’s by acquiring another FSA-regulated broker or trying to start from scratch; they are finding out it’s not as simple as they think.”
Alpari is also preparing to announce a number of senior hires in the coming weeks across sales and marketing, in line with their global expansion plans.
Commenting on his new role at Alpari, Skowronski muses: “Looking at the people, the support and the technology, it was just a win-win situation for me. I was very comfortable and happy at Currenex. But Alpari was a company where I could take all my knowledge and apply it on a global basis, taking the firm to a whole new level.”
