There is not a lot of information available about the binary options (BO) industry. Most websites just promote strategies, signals and new brokers, but nobody reviews the industry itself. Since we, MrBinary, are always following the latest news about binary options, we decided to write a blog post and forecast the development direction of binary options in 2016. This article should be of interest for not only affiliate, marketing or CEO’s of brokers, but for traders as well. So here it is: our binary options 2016 forecast.
Popularity rise in the UK
Some say that the industry has already reached its peak during summer 2015, but we believe that the whole industry boom is still ahead. Why? Firstly, some big foreign brokers like IQ Option have only recently received an FCA license in order to legally work in the UK. There are some other brokers who mostly focused on the British market in 2015 (24option) and they continue to actively work their way through. Secondly, if we compare betting with binary options then there is still a huge way for growth for the BO industry. Have you seen a lot of advertisement where binary options are compared to sports betting? We don’t think so (except cabs in London with 24option advertisement). Thirdly, if you look at Google Trends (which shows you the popularity of certain keyword in search engines), then the popularity of “binary options” has increased by 23% in last year alone. Yet Forex is 4 times more popular than binary options in the UK. This once again shows that binary options industry has a lot of space to grow!
From Forex to Binary Options
In 2016 a big number of forex brokers will add binary options to their financial instruments. The connection cost of a ready-to-start binary options platform goes down every month, which means that binary options will become more affordable even for small companies. Again, if we look how binary options are growing overall in the UK, the number of brokers who will offer a new version of an earning instrument to its customers will only grow. City Index was probably the first major forex broker in the UK which introduced spread betting to their customers (spread betting is very similar to binary options).
The trend of Forex brokers entering the binary options industry is already active all around the world (Alpari, Plus500, GCI Trading any many other). This vector of development can be compared with large betting companies which in the course of their growth connect casino games, poker and now binary options. We personally do not recommend trading binary options through bookmakers, because they know nothing about the industry, and the same goes to most Forex brokers.
Active development of trading platforms
Competition in the industry is constantly growing and that certainly is good news for traders because trading platforms are constantly improved and updated for a more comfortable trading. Many brokers who do not update their own platforms or use outdated versions from third-party companies will be at a loss in 2016 if they are not willing to invest in the trading platform.
Brokers actively change graphics, add new analytical tools to their browser trading platforms and are actively working on iOS and Android mobile applications. There are low chances that professional traders will ever switch to trading on mobile devices and the audience will demand high-quality applications for their smartphones, so that they can trade binary options from anywhere.
Advise to fresh brokers: either you buy a software from the market leaders, or you can forget about the idea of providing brokerage services at all. We were really pleased with the new platform from OptionFair, which hadn’t done anything to improve their platform in the past two years, but now they are using software from TechFinancials which is also used by 24option. Trading platform from TechFinancials is the number one third-party software for us, though some would argue that SpotOption is bigger and better.
Social Trading
Social trading could remind you of trading with financial assets where you can share your latest results with friends and all other people using the same platform. It turns out to be a small social network in which people are actively trading and exchanging valuable information. So far, this tool is not well developed among binary options brokers but there are news about the “Copy Trading” appearance, which is the first step for the development of social trading within the binary options industry. New products in this direction will increase the popularity of the product among the newcomers, and other industries (poker, sports betting and casino) as social trading further simplifies the process of trading binary options. Therefore, traders expect the emergence of innovations in this area in 2016.
Conclusion
Here, perhaps are all our predictions for 2016. Of course, as with every year, brokers will try to launch as many competitions and give as many bonuses to their clients as possible, but perhaps there will be more tournaments with prizes over $10,000. We will try not to miss any big competitions from top binary options brokers in 2016 and notify you about them in our blog.
P.S. From 4th till 7th February the biggest affiliate conference will be held in London, where our project MrBinary was shortlisted for the “Best Affiliate Newcomer” award. We will be in London during that time to meet representatives of leading binary options brokers, and we hope that we can win in the nomination and receive an impressive award from iGamingBusiness! By the way, if someone wants to meet us in London drop us a message on Twitter or write an email! 🙂
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