Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Oanda Europe, the UK subsidiary of one of the leading US forex brokers, Oanda, has reported a loss of GBP 1.54 million ($2.23 million) from its operations in 2015, shows a filing with UK’s registry The Companies House. This was caused mainly by the decision of the Swiss National Bank to remove the euro peg for the Swiss frank.
Oanda is by far not the only forex broker to suffer from this market turmoil – recently Saxo Bank also reported a net loss, while another major US forex broker – FXCM – had to borrow $300 million from the Leucadia National Corporation and still repays it.
In the case of Oanda Europe, however, 2015 was the second consecutive year that ended with a loss. In comparison to 2014’s net loss of GBP 779 000 ($1.12 million), in 2015 the company lost twice as much money.
The employment expenses (wages, salaries, social security and other pension costs) for Oanda’s average of 21 employees also rose in 2015 – from GBP 1.8 million in 2014 to GBP 2.8 million in 2015.
At the same time, in 2015 Oanda Europe’s revenues were GBP 9.18 million (13.3 million), which is 84% higher than in 2014. The company also issued ordinary shares and increased its capital by GBP 2.3 million ($3.3 million).
Meanwhile, in terms of trading metrics, Oanda Europe performed somewhat better. The trading volumes, for example, rose 8% from 2014, to $154.7 billion, with a monthly average of $12.9 billion per month. The amount of active trading accounts increased by 7% to 9739. The client funds held by Oanda Europe on their behalf also rose from GBP 33.6 million in 2014 to GBP 37 million in 2015.
For this year Oanda Europe aims at increasing its market share by 2.5%, attract new customers and increase its presence in Europe and the Middle East.
The US Oanda Corporation has broker subsidiaries in Canada, Europe, Asia Pacific, Australia and Japan, who are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Canadian regulators, UK’s FCA, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Japanese financial regulator, respectively.
Oanda offers trading in forex, precious metals and CFDs on stock indexes, commodities and treasury bonds. It also offers financial spread betting to residents of the UK and Ireland. Trading can be carried out on the MetaTrader4 platform and Oanda’s propriety fxTrade platform.
Earlier this year Oanda acquired the US and Australian clients of IBFX subsidiary of the broker-dealer and futures commission merchant TradeStation part of Japan’s Monex Group.
