WEALTHTECH
Time to strike it rich? Like many online trading platforms, AvaTrade has seen a surge of activity as forces – not least a global pandemic – combine to create huge market volatility. To cushion the risk, CEO Dáire Ferguson has introduced a new product for both newbies and practiced hands in the world of investing There is nothing like market volatility to whet the appetite of the small investor – and 2020 has seen huge asset price swings as fear, then hope, swept in. COVID-19, Brexit and the US presidential election have wreaked havoc on valuations, and huge quantitative easing programmes from central banks in spring underlined the extent of the peril markets faced. During the fortnight before the UK went into lockdown on March 23, the FTSE 100 crashed by 27 per cent, pushing the equity market close to meltdown. Conversely, positive news from Pfizer and BioNTech about a coronavirus vaccine on November 9 drove the London index 4.7
34
TheFintechMagazine | Issue 18
per cent higher in a day, and the US Dow Jones index closed three per cent up. For those with an appetite for risk, there has been abundant opportunity – and online broker AvaTrade witnessed rising demand for its services as new customers signed up when countries locked down. Now the Dublin-based business's challenge is to keep these new clients, which it is doing by helping them avoid big losses. At the forefront of AvaTrade's offer is the product AvaProtect, which can be bought when a trade is placed. Similar to insurance, customers pay a premium to protect against losses for anything from one to 72 hours. It covers forex, gold and silver trades, and there are plans to add equity indices by the end of the year.
For chief executive Dáire Ferguson, AvaProtect, plus a focus on educational tools on AvaTrade’s trading website and app, is what differentiates his business from competitor sites. “Managing the risks is by far the biggest challenge facing our customers and we have gone the extra mile in simplifying this and providing market-leading tools,” he says. “Increasingly sophisticated risk management tools should open up the industry to a wider audience and we hope that our AvaProtect offering will be among the vanguard here – appealing to the first-time traders and experienced users alike. “The concept is really simple. If you buy
www.fintech.finance