The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath have sparked evolution in numerous industries, including proprietary trading. Prop trading firms have emerged as key influencers shaping trading dynamics over the last few years. These firms provide a new way of trading for aspiring and experienced traders, giving them access to virtual capital and a chance to earn profit sharing from their performance. With cutting-edge technology, inventive strategies, and a commitment to cultivating talent, prop firms are reshaping the trading landscape. However, proprietary traders should take a cautious approach. Finding the right partner to trade with remains key in this largely unregulated space.

While there are over a hundred prop trading firms currently operating, there are only a few big names in the space, and the market has recently shown signs of consolidation.

The recent turmoil in the prop trading landscape emphasises the importance for traders to find a well-established and trusted provider with a viable and sustainable business model.

I suggest seeking proprietary trading firms that offer top-notch education tools and services, leading-edge technology, a secure withdrawal process, direct licensing with MetaQuotes and substantial trading capital.

Despite rising participation from traders in prop activity, a number of brokers have cut off their services to multiple prop trading firms, and this has led to concern from traders.

This disruption appears to be driven by MetaQuotes, the developer of the popular MetaTrader platform family. MetaQuotes appears to be concerned about how some of the brokers who license their platforms have made them available to prop firms.

This seems to be related to MetaQuote’s concerns about the “grey labeling” of its platforms. There have also been significant interruptions in payments to successful prop traders, as certain prop trading firms were fully reliant on 3rd party contractor payment platforms, some of which did not actually understand the business they were supporting.

This means there may be prop traders out there looking for a new, trustworthy prop firm where they continue trading on a Meta based platform that they are familiar with and have a reliable profit share payout system.

These changes, along with potential future regulatory scrutiny on the prop model, may well lead to further consolidation among larger players, and stable and trustworthy brokers like OANDA will remain and grow stronger as the industry segment matures.

During this time of turbulence in the prop world, many clients and affiliates have contacted us to inquire about any changes to OANDA's services. At OANDA we operate our own Meta servers. We are a broker and a prop firm, and will continue to offer Meta Platforms to prop traders.

We believe that only those firms that prioritise regulatory compliance and put user interests and experience at the center of their business model will survive as this industry consolidates over time.

We’re constantly listening to our trader community to incorporate their feedback in decision-making so we can deliver a competitive offering by providing favorable trading conditions to our challengers. We recently reduced the profit targets for our Challenge qualification stage and waived the minimum number of trading days. This means that users trading under the new challenge conditions can pass the challenge and become signal providers in as little as two to three days, unlocking an 80% profit share benefit.

Next, we plan to introduce new and exciting Challenges to cater to a variety of trading styles and appetites for risk.