Japan-based online forex broker, GMO Click has today reported its monthly operational metrics for the month of April 2018. The broker witnessed a steep decline in its over-the-counter (OTC) Fx trading volume, despite an increase in the number of client accounts.
After December 2017, the firm first witnessed such steep decline in overall trading volumes. The December month of last year, the firm witnessed lowest trading volumes since August 2014, but bounced back in the first quarter of 2018, helped by increased market volatility.
The broker’s FX Neo witnessed trading volumes of ¥680 billion ($6.21 billion), a decline of over 28 percent month-over-month from ¥943 billion ($8.61 billion) in March 2018. The reduction in trading volumes came despite an increase in total client base. At end of April 2018, the broker had 533,333 accounts registered to the Fx Neo service compared to 529,044 accounts in March 2018, a small increase of 0.81 percent.
According to Reuters, the cash currency trading segment witnessed 30 percent slump in trading activity as compared to the average levels of Q1 of 2018. GMO is not the only broker that experienced a slump in trading activity in April. Most of the leading brokerage houses across the globe also experienced a decline in trading activity after robust Q1, 2018. The Japan Exchange Group (JPX) also witnesses 9 percent decline in trading volume in the month of April 2018.
GMO Click Securities is the world’s largest Fx provider in terms of volume since 2012. The firm’s parent, GMO Internet Group has recently announced to launch a cryptocurrency exchange in the UK via a subsidiary of a subsidiary in the UK. In fact, it has signed a deal with Finatext UK, a provider of various fintech services. The Finatext UK is itself a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Finatext Ltd. GMO Internet already has its own cryptocurrency exchange GMO Coin.
