Expert View: Michael Buchbinder, Partner at Scandinavian Capital Markets

Introduction to Michael Buchbinder

Previously we interviewed Arif Alexander Ahmad, one of the Co-Founders of Scandinavian Capital Markets, which gave a great opportunity to learn about the company, its history, heritage and vision. In order to understand more about the company’s rationale for adding the cTrader platform, we have the opportunity to get some insights from Michael Buchbinder. Michael has been a Partner at the firm for 5 years, where he is responsible not just for the day-to-day but also driving growth and finding new ways to improve the quality and value Scandinavian Capital Markets clients get from their relationship.

Interview with Michael Buchbinder

Michael Buchbinder has been instrumental in transitioning Scandinavian Capital Markets from a wealth management company into Sweden’s first STP-ECN forex broker. We’ve prepared these questions to learn more about the cTrader product offering and how it compares to other platforms offered by the company.

cTrader has been held in high regard for some years now as an excellent forex trading platform. Why are you adding cTrader now? What changed or rather, what opportunities do you see?

There are tremendous opportunities that opened up for us. Customers are looking for a higher-end brokerage to trade with. With the influx of clients come requests. We have seen an enormous amount of requests for the cTrader platform. As our motto states, Everything we do is for the trader.

As such, we sought to meet their demands. Large amounts of traders enjoy the secure connectivity to fix API via cTrader. It has excellent risk management features for traders. We want them to keep trading, not blow up their accounts.

Many traders are migrating from MetaTrader , which is sadly lacking when it comes to calculating position size, amongst other key features traders have grown to use.  cTrader excels in this area. The developers behind the cTrader platform are forward-thinking and always adding new features to keep up with trader’s requests.

Why do you think the adoption of cTrader with forex brokers has been slow?

Our values fundamentally align with cTrader’s, whose motto is “Traders first.” Ours is “Everything We Do is For The Trader.” Unfortunately, I simply think the majority of Forex brokers just don’t care enough about the clients and their needs. It requires a fair amount of financial and time investment. You have to maintain a support team to serve the clients. That doesn’t always align with some businesses. They focus on making profits by signing up clients and never looking back after they get the initial deposit. Internally, from a broker’s perspective, there is a level of sophistication required to operate a platform like cTrader and bring it to the market for the clients.

For years the industry had relied on platforms like MetaTrader and, despite shortcomings in many areas, brokers did not want to spend the time and money to change.  However, in the last couple of years, we saw the industry transform for the good. Much more emphasis is now on the trader, not merely the reliance on the B-Book business model.

How exactly do you prioritize clients’ needs?

Every client is important. We have dedicated relationship managers and highly trained support teams for clients. Service has always been my key focus in the business I run with my partner Arif Alexander Ahmad. Having been in Forex both as a client and employee…I saw how important it is to build processes and invest in a team that will take care of clients, then keep them happy along the journey. This contributes to the growth of the business in size over time. Our technical team works at the back-end to create individual settings, for example, rebates groups for IBs or price feeds for high volume traders. Our back-office team understands that cTrader users need support for reporting and requests from clients who are moving from MetaTrader to cTrader.

Michael Buchbinder Photo
Michael Buchbinder presenting at an IB conference hosted by Scandinavian Capital Markets in South Africa.

Additionally, we have invested in analysts and experienced professionals in the markets as well as cTrader to provide our clients with the material and tools that allow them to make informed decisions.  Also, we have started production on a series of cTrader videos, not just to get clients familiar with the platform, but to help them make the switch from other platforms like MetaTrader .

We are listening to our clients and will produce more material, live events and webinars to help them trade more effectively and profitably.

I see clients through my business ethics prism. They want to feel they are being treated as equal, trusted partners in safe, professional hands and a win-win situation for all. I also see that modern traders are much more educated, technically equipped and like to make decisions based on credible and timely information. Our company has a media team that consists of experienced market analysts and observers. They work daily to provide valuable insights on the currency trends, world financial events and industry news.

Money Managers seem to be a core focus for Scandinavian Capital Markets, do you see any opportunities to incorporate cTrader Copy into your product offering. Or do you have any alternative ideas which fit better?

Yes, we do plan on adding it in the near future. As it is a new platform to Scandinavian Capital Markets we want to make sure everything is set up and functioning properly before adding these sorts of extra features of cTrader. 

One of the big attractions of cTrader is its capacity to manage money. The ease of use of cTrader Copy benefits, not just the broker, but makes the whole process more transparent for the investor. That lets them know exactly what they are paying for and the current and past performance of their selected trader. Also, for the trader, setup is incredibly easy, transparent and the capacity for marketing their services and performance is second to none.

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