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Author: Anatol Antonovici
Senior Reporter
Anatol Antonovici

Dukascopy Performed Poorly in 2018

Swiss-based retail Forex broker Dukascopy published its financial results for 2018. According to the report, the company recorded lower revenue as it failed to address the losses from the first half of 2018. During the year, the broker noted operating revenue of CHF 27.4 million ($26.09 million), which is 11.3% down from CHF 30.9 million recorded in 2017.

Dukascopy Still Suffers From H1 Loss

The financial report suggests that Dukascopy still suffers from its poor performance in the first half of 2018, which forced the Geneva-based broker to admit the first annual loss in several years. The company said that its operating losses in 2018 were CHF 1.1 million ($1.07 million), while in 2017 it saw a slight profit of about CHF 100,000.

Dukascopy’s annual performance was dragged down by weak results of its Forex and CFD unit, which saw reduced trading volumes, down 11% compared to 2017. Elsewhere, the binary options trading volume increased by 21% compared to the previous year. The decrease in Forex and CFD trading volume might be caused by lower volatility in the Forex and stock markets across the world. On the other side, the great performance in binary options trading might be a result of tighter regulations from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), which are pushing more EU traders to consider brokers from non-EU countries, including from Switzerland.

The decline in revenue was offset by lower operating costs, which fell compared to the previous year. The company incurred expenses at CHF 27.6 million ($27.09 million) versus CHF 30.9 million in 2017.

Number of Accounts Grows

The good news is that the number of active trading accounts at the broker grew by 50% compared to the previous fiscal year. Besides this, the total client deposits also expanded by 8% to CHF 114 million last year from CHF 105.5 million in 2017. According to Dukascopy, the Swiss retail bank currently registers 1,000 new accounts per day on average.

As per a joint statement by Dukascopy co-CEOs Veronika and Andrey Duka, the broker plans to expand even more:

In 2018, the Bank concentrated its efforts in getting ready for a strategical jump: collecting 1 million clients within the next few years. Dukascopy Bank has a serious plan to become the fastest growing bank in Switzerland. We understand that this is a serious challenge and, in the course of 2018 it was completed, finalized in order to prepare the Bank to achieve this target.

The co-CEOs concluded:

At the time of issuance of this annual report, the Bank already opens 1 000 new accounts per day. This is the result of a combination of the following factors: an effective modern messenger, a strong video-identification technology, an effective integration of artificial intelligence in the client on-boarding process and cryptofriendliness.

The broker stated that its most demanded service last year was the Mobile Current Account (MCA), which is a kind of banking account that may be accessed via an app. The number of new MCA accounts in 2018 was 25,553 compared to only 116 in 2017.

At the beginning of March, we reported that Dukascopy had launched its own cryptocurrency. Dukascoin is an ERC-20 token to be used as a reward for clients using the bank’s Connect 911 messenger and the related MCA accounts.

Last week, Dukascopy announced that it reached another key milestone in MCA accounts, as it registered over 1,000 new MCA accounts on Tuesday, April 23. The company said that this proved the bank’s plans aimed at growing its client base. With the help of the Dukascoin Crypto initial coin offering (ICO), the company hopes to open from 1000 to over 10,000+ MCA accounts per day.

Meet The Author
Anatol Antonovici
Anatol Antonovici
Senior Reporter

Anatol has been writing for our news site for a year and is the newest member of our team. While he’s new to us, he’s certainly not new to trading with over 10 years’ experience being a professional financial journalist and working in the markets.

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