MetaQuotes vs Third Party Signal Providers: ZuluTrade Speaks Out

As is to be expected, the backlash against MetaQuotes’ publication on its corporate website aimed at discouraging the use of copy trading platforms yesterday morning is gaining momentum.

The very same day, Tradency put an end to its seven year commercial relationship with MetaQuotes products as a direct result of the actions of the company. Today’s respondent is ZuluTrade, a company at which MetaQuotes directed the exact same allegation of being a facilitator for hacking in yesterday’s publicly available warning.

ZuluTrade’s CEO Leon Yohai spoke to Forex Magnates in order to provide his position on the situation, which also represents the wider consensus within ZuluTrade.

“In relation to the latest public announcement made by MetaQuotes, we would like to clarify that ZuluTrade does not hack any network protocol, and this has been communicated to MetaQuotes repeatedly. ZuluTrade uses completely legitimate and documented methods to connect with collaborating MT4 brokers and has never violated the terms & conditions of MetaQuotes” explained Mr Yohai.

Mr Yohai is not the first to subscribe to the point of view that MetaQuotes intends to internalize the entire signals sector by creating a difficult modus operandi for the third party landscape. “It seems to us that MetaQuotes has decided to monopolize the signals business, targeting fully legitimate competitive vendors like ZuluTrade, by using inappropriate methods such as secretly deploying mechanisms to broker MT4 servers to block a list of IPs. For ZuluTrade this caused only insignificant downtime (as opposed to other services) and currently all our services operate normally” is Mr Yohai’s take on the increasingly discussed corporate direction of MetaQuotes.

Software security and of course the wellbeing of traders’ accounts is one aspect, and Mr Yohai is aligned with MetaQuotes on this point, supporting the firm's endeavors to protect against unauthorized system entry and abuse: “Even though ZuluTrade is opposed both ethically and professionally to the methods engaged by MetaQuotes, we can still find some sense in their goal to stop protocol hackers", he concurs, “however, instead of blocking IPs, they could, for instance, build their protocol in a way that changes dynamically, without even having to issue a software update. Such a solution would instantly disable protocol hackers, leaving legitimate services such as ZuluTrade, VPS providers and users trading from multiple terminals, completely unaffected.”

The Future: Platform Agnosticism

“Taking into consideration the latest developments, ZuluTrade is looking forward to implementing alternative back-end integrations that would be entirely independent from the MT4 system, in favor of stability, Scalability and overall trading experience” concluded Mr Yohai, confirming the notion that many software and signal providers could look elsewhere for their platform partners in future.

This, combined with a host of new platforms having become available recently, with the support of banks, and an open and customizable environment, could signal a greater move in that direction with MetaQuotes showing its cards being a substantial catalyst.

Forex Magnates will report further viewpoints from within the industry during the course of the day.