Industry viewpoint: Heading in the right direction

Muamar Behnam, Swissquote’s head of global sales, provides a snapshot of the growth plans of the bank, especially in the EU.

What have been the key FX market trends for you for 2023, particularly on the execution front?

It certainly has been an interesting year so far. We had to adapt our offering and adopt new technologies in order to better serve our clients, especially on the institutional side. There is a shift for our partnering banks and brokers from the marginal business to the spot side. The delivery business has clearly grown massively during this first half year. On the retail side, our clients keep focused on Blue Chips, CFDs and commodities confirming the trend we saw in the last months of 2022.

What have been the key milestones in your expansion/growth strategy, and what are you most proud of this year?

We are starting to grow the business in our CySEC* licensed entity in Limassol. We have future developments for this entity that will come later in 2023. The team in Cyprus is in place, and is actively supported by other entities of the group which will make sure that it’s a success.

How is your digital asset business performance, and what growth have you seen? What volumes are you now seeing?

The business is steady but the trend is upwards. We launched our own crypto exchange, which in the long run will definitely help us to significantly grow the business in this segment.

Has the recent CySEC license helped with these ambitions? How is Swissquote Capital Markets performing since launch and what plans do you have for 2023-24 to grow the business? 

The CySEC license was necessary to continue to grow the CFD business in EU territory. We have plans to extend the offering to other tradable instruments, with the backing of our parent bank in Switzerland. The idea is to offer an alternative to the “CFD only” brokers.

What is your outlook for digital assets going forward, and how do you plan to integrate your digital asset strategy with your over-arching FX strategy for 2023? 

Digital assets in general are 100% part of our strategy going forward. With the addition of CFDs on digital assets in the near future, we will have the complete range to offer to our clients: actual cryptos, CFDs on cryptos, ETPs, we offer an agency type of execution on top of our own exchange, and also offer custody services. We are well equipped to tackle the upcoming challenges in this space.

*Founded in 2001, CySEC (Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission) is one of the key watchdog authorities for brokerages in Europe, whose financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonisation law.

www.swissquote.com/institutional