Alpari, a leading global provider of online foreign exchange (Forex, FX) trading services, is planning to set up its regional office in Dubai to serve the UAE and the Middle East region.

The move, which aims to bring Alpari’s trading operations closer to clients across the region, makes Dubai the latest global financial centre to host Alpari operations after Moscow, London, New York and Shanghai.

Alpari Emirates will provide professional consultancy covering online trading and services offered by Alpari (UK).  The mission is to expand Alpari (UK)’s business in the Gulf region serving individual traders, fund managers and institutional customers with innovative and proprietary currency trading technology combined with quality execution, competitive spreads and margins, and helpful customer support with a highly professional team in the UAE, said a company official.

“Alpari’s decision to open its regional office in Dubai underlines the strategic importance we attach to the Middle East Forex trading market, and is equally a demonstration of confidence in the ability of Dubai to continue to remain the financial nerve centre of the region,” said co-founder and CEO of Alpari (UK) and co-founder of Alpari Emirates Andrey Vedikhin.

“The Alpari office in Dubai will serve our existing and potential retail and institutional customers in the UAE and the wider Middle East, a market which we have seen expand exponentially in 2008.”

Alpari is one of the world’s fastest growing providers of online forex trading services, with 100,000 live accounts worldwide and daily trading volumes in excess of $2 billion. In 2008, the company was able to record a 543 per cent increase in individual traders, money managers and institutional customers worldwide, in spite of the uncertain financial climate.

Alpari’s foray into the Middle East comes at a time when forex trading volumes in the region are soaring dramatically on account of ongoing volatility. Alpari has already seen a 319 per cent surge in its UAE consumer base this year, and the company expects to increase its live accounts growth rate in the Middle East to 500 per cent in 2009.

The foreign exchange market is the largest market in the world, with $4 trillion trading hands every day; the forex market is estimated to be more than 3 times larger than the equities market and five times larger than the futures market. – TradeArabia News Service