OREANDA-NEWS. May 14, 2014. Realities and imaginations about FOREX Interview with K.B.Rasulov, Muganbank’s Deputy Director of Treasury Department.

Interviewer:
To financial community and nationals of our country "Muganbank" is known as the first bank in Azerbaijan enabling clients to conduct transactions in the FOREX market. What has happened over the four years since that time, what progress has this bank product achieved?

K.B. Rasulov
Indeed, five years ago the Bank’s management adopted a decision, bold at those times, which enabled the local participants of the FOREX market to get an opportunity to conduct FOREX transactions on a legitimate basis, in full compliance with Azerbaijani laws, subject to an agreement with the Bank, and thus remove these transactions out of "grey" schemes under which they were being conducted before through numerous so- called dealing centers which are quite a lot in this sphere today.

Interviewer:
But, what is the key advantage for a client working in the FOREX market through a bank over those who still use the services of dealing centers or as they often call themselves broker companies?

K.B. Rasulov
I will try to explain this difference by an example from quite another sphere of trade. I think, we will hardly get different opinions, if today we ask 10 entirely different people even with quite different material wealth on where they would prefer to buy a packet of curd: at a supermarket out of a chill cabinet, in original package with manufacturer’s name and address, date of manufacturing on it, by getting a cashier's check, or at an underground passage of railway station, from a smiling old woman convincingly praising her very fresh domestic product.

Where, to whom and about who will you complain tomorrow, if you get infected with salmonellosis after all, having chosen the second option by saving half a manat because of the cheapness and five minutes because of unwillingness to walk 100 meters to the supermarket?

Concerning the finances which are the subject of trading in the FOREX market, when dealing with them your intelligibility should be much higher, as loss in case of a bad choice of counterparty may total the whole 100% of the amount you are going to invest in this business.

Interviewer:
How reasonable would it be to compare the operating dealing centers with the old woman selling curd at the underground passage? You know, the dealing centers are incorporated, too, they have good websites full of information, phone numbers and lots of expensive advertisings on city billboards? What is the trick? Maybe, they're just quite serious competitors in the market, and therefore you spoke of them so?

K.B. Rasulov
The seriousness of a respectable competitor needs to be proved through figures in official financial statements, not through an annoying advertising, where an average man is promised butter mountains and wine lakes, even they have not yet started working with him. Here are some examples:

"Unique welcome bonus of 100% for the first deposit up to USD2000

Due to our welcome bonus you will double your first deposit, as we will add a 100% bonus to the amount of replenishment!

Replenish your account with USD 100 and get USD 100 more as a present, replenish with USD 1000, get USD 1000 more!"

How do you like it?

Another example:

" 20% for every replenishment of account!

The more often you replenish your account, the more pleasant money gifts you will get!

You can be confident that you are cooperating with a first-class broker, who really cares for you and your profit"

For fair, how can one not love such a caring broker so easily and willingly hanging out gifts for some reason? But, at whose expenses?

One more super-marketing move:

"If you have previously worked in the FOREX market through another dealing center, and now you have made a right decision to transfer to ourselves, we will add 70% to your initial deposit. At that, this bonus will be supplementary to the already existing one! For instance, should you make your first transfer in an amount of USD 1000, your account will be credited with an amount of USD 1700 (50% for the initial deposit + 20% for the transition from the other dealing center)".

Here's a serious struggle for the client.

Recently, I have contacted with one of such brokers and asked the following question:

"How can I be sure that your company is not a phony company wishing to pick up my funds and tomorrow, after being closed, to re-register under a new name, or under the same no longer in Virgin Islands but in Cook Islands?"
They had the following answer:
 
"You can view our website and see that it is not the first year we have been operating. No other direct evidences are available. "
 
I thoroughly reviewed their website, and the company turned out to have a lot of titles: it is both “The Best Broker in Asia” and “The Best Broker in Eastern Europe”, also “The Best Broker in CIS”.
 
When I asked about the specific figures, and about how I could see their financial statements, also auditors’ report for the last period, such an answer came:
 
"We don’t provide any. "
 
Names of these companies can be found, if you copy the advertising “promises” I cited examples from and search for in GOOGLE. There is still a lot of such kind of things to help you find out who is who.
 
Interviewer:

And, what about "Muganbank"? Doesn’t it provide any bonuses to its clients?

K.B. Rasulov
Our clients are earnest and smart people fully satisfied with that when they work with us they can be comfortable about their funds which grow exceptionally due to their own skills and due to the reliable technical and analytical support they receive from the Bank. Their rights against the Bank are protected by relevant bilateral agreement and national laws. The processes of entry and withdrawal of the funds to be invested will take only a few minutes, irrespective of their size, as befits a banking establishment. A new service will be introduced within the next few days, which will enable the clients to make their investments online using plastic bank cards. The Bank’s website contains plenty of information and analytics necessary for working in the FOREX market. Easy, available and quick service - that's what is most valued by the client. The Bank’s having 24 branches in Baku and 16 in regions of Azerbaijan makes these advantages for the client much more effective with which no brokerage office can ever be compared.

Financially we encourage those, young people as a rule, who take a shot at working in the FOREX market by participating in traders’ contests held by the Bank over demo accounts. Every month “Muganbank” awards the winners with money prizes in the amount of USD 2400.

Interviewer:
Why does “Muganbank” take such little care of advertising its product for working in the  FOREX market?

K.B.Rasulov
Our bank does not need to somehow concentrate client’s attention on this product namely, just because for us working in international exchange markets is merely one of the many other directions the Bank is successfully pursuing by stably growing as a financial-credit institution for more than 20 years already.

Our clients who work in the FOREX market have an opportunity to use and successfully use the whole spectrum of other necessary banking services we provide, which include settlement and cash services, loans, deposits, plastic cards and so on. All in one – that’s comfortable and advantageous both for the clients and the Bank. We are partners working for a common result which is called success.

Interviewer:
Why, do you think, the word “FOREX” causes in different people such a broad range of sensations: from the most enthusiastic to pejorative ones? What phenomenon is it, actually?   Why do some people consider it a perfect instrument for making money and others a super tool for bankruptcy? Where is the truth?

Rasulov K.B.
Strange enough, but both the statements are true. To explain this I will draw such an analogy. A helicopter, for example, which is a fruit of technological progress, designed for getting from point A to point B in a short span of time. If an educated, disciplined and skillful pilot will be at the controls, the helicopter in his hands is good. He will really deliver the passengers and cargo to the place of destination quickly. However, if an outsider without a proper education and skills to pilot an aircraft undertakes to pilot this aerial vehicle filled with a complex electronics and first-class equipment, any result other than crash, and very soon, can not be expected. That’s same with the work in the financial markets. One can learn trading in tomatoes even in one day, however, the practical results of an honest learner and of a loafer will be different here, too. And, you can only dedicate years of hard work and long practice to become effective and successful at FOREX. It is impossible to learn this in one day, in one week or even in one year. Believe me this science is more complicated than a helicopter.

One wise proverb says: "Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathered by labour shall increase". And that’s where nothing characterizes the proper attitude towards work in the financial markets better.

FOREX- it is just a very interesting, captivating, but a hard work…

There are professions which need to be learned all life long. Why there are ten thousands of surgeons operating on appendicitis, but the neurological surgeons who are trusted operations on a human brain are few.  Why there are millions of drivers in the world, but those participating in Formula-1 races are known worldwide. That’s why, among the people who have decided to become a trader, success is achieved only  by those, who enjoy learning, love discipline, do not fear failures, but having overcome them many a time, one day say to themselves “It seems I begin to understand something ... ”.

Interviewer:
So you agree that those who have decided to make investments in the FOREX market will certainly face setbacks and even a lot of failures?

Rasulov K.B.
True success does not come easily. To those who have firmly decided to achieve a real professional success I would recommend a recipe from Japanese entrepreneur, the founder of Honda corporation Soichiro Honda.

He once said:

"Success represents the 1% of your work which results from the 99% that is called failure".

One more remarkable example:

There was once a man called Jonas Salk. He is known as an American medical researcher and virologist, who developed the first successful polio vaccine. It is known that before finding the right formula of making this vaccine, he had for a long time of his life to make two hundred unsuccessful experiments before finally achieving the desired result. After he came up with one that worked, someone asked him "How it felt to fail two hundred times trying to come up with the vaccine for polio? ", he replied, "I never failed two hundred times at anything in my life. I simply found out two hundred ways not to make a vaccine for polio".