HY Markets is a market leading global forex and CFD broker that was recently named Best FX Broker Northern Europe, 2012 and Best FX Mini Account Provider, 2012. HY Markets is part of Henyep Capital Markets, a UK-based FSA-regulated trading company and a division of global financial conglomerate Henyep Group, which has been operating in the financial services industry for over 35 years. In this interview, Henyep Group’s Marketing Director, Marios Chailis, discusses the company’s current strategy and direction.

What can you share about your current operations and strategic vision for the group?
Henyep Capital Markets operates three main brands all of which have been enjoying enormous success over the last few years. We operate HY Markets which is our main retail online trading division. It provides individual investors with access to all capital markets including forex, metals, commodities, equities, indices and more. PIPTRADE is our bespoke spread trading division which provides individual investors with access to the world markets using our innovative spread trading method. Finally we also operate HY Investment which is our industry-leading platform for introducing brokers and white label partners. In the future, we plan to continue to focus on bringing best-of-breed trading services to our clients, this includes investments into technology and of course the entire customer experience. We have been enjoying phenomenal growth and have had extremely positive feedback from our clients. Our brands are very well established in our key markets and we will focus to maintain that growth while continuing to invest into customer service. Naturally we are always looking to expand into additional markets and we have some very promising partnerships that will be materialising in the very near future that we believe will help us achieve that.

What is the company’s background, and what type of trader and investor are you providing services for?
The Henyep Group was established in the 1970s in Hong Kong and that’s where the global headquarters are still based today. Henyep Capital Markets was established in London in 1994 as the main capital markets trading headquarters for the Group. It was very important for us to set up the company in the UK so that we could operate under the FSA because of its integrity, transparency, and compliance, all of which are key priorities for us. In order to better serve our partners and customers in the Middle East, the group has also established Henyep Investment Bank in Dubai, UAE licensed and regulated by the DFSA. Setting up an office in the Middle East is part of our long-term commitment to the region where we have had partnerships with organisations and leading financial institutions for more than 25 years now. We pride ourselves on offering industry-leading professional online services to retail investors and all types of traders. We work hard to be competitive in the market, offering various account types, numerous trading advantages and low spreads. We offer many different trading platforms so that clients can select how they prefer to trade and we work hard to make sure that we provide a personalised trading experience.

The forex market is evolving rapidly. Which territories do you think will emerge as the leaders in this field?
The retail forex market is still growing and has not reached full maturity yet. Even though there are a lot of traditional brokers that have been in the industry for a long time, these past few years we have witnessed a surge in the number of new brokers entering the market. Unfortunately this includes all sorts of companies, with some operating without being regulated or licensed in any way. The financial situation of the last few years along with the high level of competition in the industry will lead to a large number of acquisitions over the next few years with larger, healthier and more established companies buying out and merging with smaller companies. This is good news for retail clients because it will help to weed out a lot of the unregulated companies and help the industry to mature. Another thing that we see happening over the next five years is a bigger push from regulators for additional rules and transparency. We are already seeing signs of this coming from the US and we are sure that more jurisdictions will follow. In terms of territories we feel that the Middle East and Asia-Pacific still have huge untapped potential and that we will be seeing a lot more growth coming from these regions in the very near future.

Focusing on your main retail brands, what range of trading platforms do HY Markets and PIPTRADE provide?
We offer clients multiple options when it comes to trading platforms, with a great deal of focus being put on our own custom built proprietary HY Webtrader and PIPTRADE browser based platforms. In addition we offer the market leading Metatrader 4 as well as one of the widest selections of mobile trading platforms which includes MT4 Mobile for windows mobile devises and platforms for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android devices.

All platforms enable clients access to live tradable prices, real-time news, advanced charting tools, and online account information provides a seamless trading experience. All of the platforms above are also available under all our other brands HY Investment and PIPTRADE.

How many currency pairs do you offer and what other instruments can clients trade with the Henyep Capital brands?
We offer a total of 21 currency pairs at this time. One of our main advantages is that unlike a lot of the ‘forex only’ companies out there, Henyep Capital Markets offers clients a complete product offering which includes spot forex, energy, metals, soft commodities, equities and indices. This diversity allows our clients to benefit from being able to access multiple products in various financial markets from a single integrated account. All of our products are based on global benchmark exchanges providing for transparent pricing and trading execution. We pride ourselves on the innovation of our research and development team, which continues to recognise new product opportunities and deliver rapid response trading solutions to satisfy client-focused demand.

How important is investor education and what tools does Henyep Capital Markets provide in this regard?
Our websites are full of comprehensive educational material offering both theoretical and practical insight on online trading. This includes all the necessary tools like news, charts, technical and fundamental analysis but we also offer some custom built trading applications and widgets designed to make the trading experience easier for the user.

Additionally our account managers and customer service staff are on hand 24 hours a day, five days a week to help with training or to assist clients wherever necessary. We also offer a specialised VIP service which provides clients with real-time market updates by phone, email or SMS. We are also now offering our clients free subscriptions to leading analysis and signals tools like Autochartist and Trading Central. We have plans to further differentiate ourselves by providing our clients with more tools to better understand the markets and make their trading decisions.

Do you plan to grow your online capabilities over the coming months and years?
We are currently working hard to release the next generation of our HY Markets web trading platform along with our updated website with enhanced usability and a large number of new tools and features. We are constantly updating our offering and these new releases along with our existing HY Trader 4 cover all types of different trading platforms giving our clients unrestricted access to trade however they wish from any type of device.

What opportunities are there for companies to partner with Henyep Capital Markets?
Our company HY Investment operates one of the most reputable Introducing Broker programmes on the market today. HY Investment’s sole focus is to service our partners; we have developed specific solutions which assist IB’s in managing their clients. Our proprietary HY IB Manager software is just one advantage of our complete package of services, it provides complete real-time analysis and reporting on all their clients from an easy-to-use interface. We are open to any type of partnership either from individuals or companies and we try to work on agreements that are mutually beneficial for both parties.

We offer IB solutions and well as full White Label arrangements.