On March 29, 2012, over 20 of the Management Team and manager-class members from Japan, the U.S., and China all got together in Dallas, Texas, at the office of TradeStation Technologies to hold the Global Management Committee (GMC) Meeting.
Here, we had discussions on the state of the Monex Group and where we are headed. We came to a mutual understanding and made comprehensive plans on the prioritization of how we are going to develop our new global trading platform and how we are going to expand our revenues and realize cost reductions through this platform.
The new global trading platform we are building leverages TradeStation’s award-winning technology widely popular among active traders and IBFX’s state-of-the-art technology and new SNS marketing initiatives towards its client base in over 150 countries.
The GMC Meeting in Dallas produced many prolific plans based on agreement among the global management and manager level. Based on this agreement, the Monex Group will continue to steadily progress towards the realization of the Global Vision in which we increase revenue in all four main business regions; Japan, the U.S., China, and the Global FX business, while we build a global trading platform that creates a competitive advantage and reduces fixed cost.
We also acknowledged that the true advantage of the Global Vision is not only the fixed cost reductions that will be realized through the in-house global trading platform, but also the augmentation of revenue opportunities that will be generated through value-added services to our clients. This policy has been shared throughout the Group around our 11 offices worldwide immediately.
The Global Vision Strategy we have designed is a first in the industry worldwide. Becoming the world’s first financial group to have a universal system base for individual investors may seem ambitious. However, we have the skills, passion, and a detailed system development plan overlooking the next four years to realize this ambition. We believe that taking steady steps and achieving important milestones on our Road Map will give us the courage and strength to provide our clients around the globe with an entirely new investment experience.
In addition, our business strategy and revenue goals that were determined in Dallas for our four main business regions, Japan, the U.S., China, and the Global FX business, give us a clear direction in which we are headed and motivation for how we will provide value to our clients and the society at large.
However, we also realize the challenges we face in our four main business regions. Below are some of the challenges and the countermeasures that were discussed and shared at the GMC meeting in Dallas.
In our main business region, Japan, we aspire to establish a global online financial group by providing TradeStation’s innovative trading tools, introducing a new commission table to allure active traders, and also becoming No.1 in U.S. stock trading by maximizing TradeStations’ trading infrastructure.
Monex, Inc. has been providing its customers with an extensive product line-up, attracting various types of investors. Our challenge now is how we will attract active traders with our pioneering financial services.
In the U.S. business region that is centered around TradeStation and IBFX, we must exert ourselves to not only satisfy our existing active traders but also attract new arbitrage traders that do not trade as actively. To do so, we plan to leverage our preeminent systems and our acclaimed recognition by expanding our trading platform and revising our subscription fee table to broaden our client base.
In our Chinese business region, our biggest challenge is thriving in a business environment where Chinese regulation is tight towards foreign securities companies. How we seek business opportunities and how we design the business in China through our representative office in Beijing that is the first among the online brokerage industry is key. We also need to focus on how we will capture the capital flight from mainland China to Hong Kong which is now a big trend. Our 100% subsidiary, Monex Boom Securities is working to tackle this challenge in Hong Kong. Capturing the growth in China with TradeStation’s technology and Monex Group’s capital and allocating the Group’s resource and network effectively will become important for the growth for the entire Group.
The Global FX business is a key driver of growth in both the short and mid term, and is also an area where we will see the fastest results of the Global Vision Strategy. Our challenge in the Global FX business is how we input the Group’s technology and human resource and how we acquire lucrative business opportunities. The FX trading system that will be the core of our Global FX business will have two platforms; IBFX’s (acquired in 2011) Meta Trader4 (MT4) platform, and TradeStation’s FX trading platform we are developing in-house. It is worth noting that the MT4 platform is a cutting-edge platform which has become a defacto-standard for active and high-end traders. We are planning to implement these platforms on a worldwide scale in the next two years.
The implementation of these universal trading systems will help us acquire new revenue opportunities while reducing cost, which will be the driving power of our growth. Our Group currently ranks within reach of the top 10 in terms of FX trading volume worldwide. However, by 1) implementing the highly differentiated MT4 trading platform, 2) enforcing the B2B business (providing our FX trading platforms to other brokerage and FX trading companies globally), and 3) providing TradeStation’s FX trading platform to institutional investors in the U.S., we can aim to rank among the top 5 in FX trading volume.
In addition, we will also be able to achieve higher profitability by unifying and controlling FX order flows globally within the next two years.
In addition to the initiatives that will be taken above, we can pursue further revenue opportunities with our in-house systems and technical expert personnel resource we possess worldwide. The B2B business mentioned in the Global FX business is an example of this opportunity, and we will continue to search for new revenue opportunities globally in all business regions. We are establishing a management structure and a global personnel exchange system to proactively discover and seize these new revenue possibilities. For example, the GMC meeting in Dallas consisted of manager-level members from Japan, the U.S., and around the globe. Managerial consolidation for day-to-day operations is also progressing, including the technology initiatives that are being lead by our experts in the U.S. As mentioned above, we are accelerating the globalization of our management structure at a remarkable pace as a Japan-born global financial institution.
Concurrent with the efforts to increase corporate value in all business regions, the Monex Group will also take steps to reduce 15% of fixed costs within four years based on the comprehensive system development plan.
The "X" for MONEX stands for a step ahead of MONEY, which signifies the future of finance. We aspire to empower traders and investors worldwide with the best breed of technology, education, service, and financial professionalism to provide access to top financial markets globally. By rigorously pursuing our road map and providing value-added services to our clients, we will continue to take proactive challenges to become a global online financial group powered by technology with a revenue target of over 1 billion dollars.
Our ultimate resource is our people. The Monex Group currently has 850 colleagues around the globe committed to realizing our goals and meeting our stakeholders’ expectations. We will continue to update our progress on the Global Vision and take positive initiatives that will boost the financial globe. We thank you for your continuous support.