amana: Transparency at the core of everything they do

We also make sure that our offering is priced fairly. A good example is that we don’t charge commissions on local and regional shares, and this is because currently they are very expensive to trade. We make no money on local and regional shares. The cost that we pay to the exchanges to clear those transactions is the same price that we give to our customers. Our cost is their cost. This is our approach because by removing such frictions, we hope to get more people involved in the markets, and over time we believe the prices to trade and invest in local and regional markets will reduce.

What value does transparency play particularly in financial markets and trading?

We know that this is a relatively new approach in the financial sector, but transparency is very important to us at amana. We don’t believe that transparency should be in fine print, so we are taking it a step further. In our Transparency Statement on our website, we explain very clearly how we make money on the various products alongside the risks associated with different products.

This is because we want everyone to understand how things work. Our goal is to build trust and to ensure that our customers are equipped with the knowledge they need to make the best-informed decisions that they can, even if that means that we make less profit.

Can you discuss your new all-in-one-trading app?

amana is built for large and small accounts, experienced or inexperienced traders. Our mission is to remove barriers for people and provide accessibility, to provide a clear and transparent message on all our products that anyone can understand, and to educate at every step of the customer journey, if required. It’s important for me to underline that the difference isn’t one feature or another.

Rather, it’s an investment and trading app designed to be familiar, so that any trader or investor can feel comfortable using it. To illustrate, we have unique order screens that simplify the user experience without the need to input order types or breakdown assets into lots, contracts, and share numbers.

For example, you can input the USD amount you want to trade or invest, and we do the rest on the backend. We also have quick access charts, so our customers can swipe through assets they are most interested in quickly and easily to get a read on how different markets are performing.

We have a For You page that pulls together asset information personalised to the users’ interests and, most importantly, we provide access to MENA-specific exchange traded stocks alongside US shares, gold, oil, indices, crypto, in many other major financial markets. With the help of our state-of-the art technology, our customers have access to global and local financial markets on the go; anytime, anywhere.

What are your predictions for crypto in regaining its strength?

I am a believer in teaching people the reality of the markets, especially the fact that markets are not simple and can be volatile. My frustration is that many companies out there make things appear simpler than they are, while people must understand that certain products are risky.

Crypto assets are a good example of that. Look at the volatility in Bitcoin and Ethereum now. At the same time, crypto is not going to go away at all and all of us; traders, investors or not, need to develop a relationship with this asset.

Personally, I believe that what we call crypto is the future of all financial markets, maybe not in all the different tokens we see now, but in the blockchain technology and tokenisation as such. Regulation can expedite that or slow it down, but cannot stop it, and is much needed to protect the consumer. The bottom line is that crypto is here to stay.