The Swiss forex broker and bankSwissquote has just released a report on its Q3 metrics. In line with the overall industry trend, revenues and profit rates are stagnant. Year –on-year, the company’s revenues decreased by 14.9% and net profit – by 30.5%. For 2012, Swissquote expects revenues of about CHF 112 million (appr. $118.5 million) across all its divisions (banking, forex, etc.).
Speaking of forex alone, Swissquotes forex eForex division has registered adecrease of 12.9% in trading results – from CHF 38.4 million to CHF 33.4 million. The eForex trading volumes have decreases by 16.5%, from CHF 313 billion to CHF 261.9 billion. The reason for this is mainly the low volatility of the foreign exchange market and naturally, Swissquote is not the only company affected: other major brokers like Forex.com have also reported decrease in retail trading volumes and revenue.
Swissquotes results - Q3 2012
Despite the results of the first three quarters of the year, and the continuing investor uncertainty, Swissquote is going on with its planned expansion. In October, the brokerset up a new office in Malta. This is Swissquote’s first European office outside its home base – Switzerland, and together with the company’s Dubai office helps the broker establish its positions on the European, Middle-Eastern and Asian markets.
The broker obtained a Category 3 license from the Maltese Financial Services Authority (MFSA). Explained in simple terms, this license allows Swissquote to render forex services to EU member states without any restrictions.
Up until now Malta was a favored spot for online gambling companies but apparently it is opening up to Forex as well. Another major broker operating out of the island is FXDD Europe.
Swiss DOTS To Open for New Clients and Issuers
Back in May, together with Goldman Sachs and UBS Swissquote launched the Swiss DOTS service (Swiss Derivatives OTC Trading System). The service appears to be gaining popularity and the DOTS trading volumes continues to increase. In October alone it registered 7,600 executed transactions. As the service is already proven to be successful, it will be opened to more clients and issuers and the DOTS offering will no longer be restricted to Swissquote customers only. This is good news for the industry, as DOTS offers a scope of 33,000 leveraged products (for comparison, the Scoach market place only offers 23,000).
Read Swissquote's full Q3 report here.
