How to get access to international financial markets bypassing sanctions with ECN

According to statistics from the Central Bank of Russia, 17 million Russians had brokerage accounts as of December 2021. About 70% of the total number of investors trade through . The main volume of transactions on it accounts for securities of Russian companies. The remaining 30% work with the platform "SPB Exchange" - Russia's largest organizer of trading in shares of companies registered outside the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation.

Число жителей России занятых инвестиционной деятельностью через зарубежных брокеров сравнительно невелико. По данным ФНС оно находится в диапазоне 20 – 30 тысяч активных трейдеров. Крупные, институциональные игроки предпочитают сотрудничать с лидерами рынка финансовых операций, маркетмейкерами Morgan Stanley, Swissquote и т.д. И сами эти компании работают в основном с крупным капиталом. Розничным инвесторам удобнее и выгоднее торговать через таких брокеров, получая прямой доступ к ликвидности.

After the start of a large-scale sanctions campaign launched against Russia on February 24, 2022, Russian investors found themselves in a difficult situation. Restrictions imposed by both Russia and the EU and the U.S. make it difficult to conduct cross-border transactions, receive coupon and dividend income on foreign stocks and bonds, and sell and buy securities of foreign issuers. In addition, many Russian brokers are subsidiaries of sanctioned banks. The work of such brokers with foreign assets is actually paralyzed. How to get out of this situation?

Most of the investment companies falling under the jurisdiction of the EU and the USA have taken measures to close access to their trading instruments for the citizens of Russia. For example, Saxo Bank has closed all accounts of Russian and Belarusian clients, Interactive Brokers warned about possible problems with payment transactions, and Exante simply banned opening accounts and transferring money to the residents of the Russian Federation. Similar behavior is demonstrated by the largest Chinese brokers. Neither Up Fintech, nor Webull, nor Futu open accounts for clients from Russia.

gives traders dozens of trading instruments to work in financial markets around the world. ECN brokers are not affiliated with any state taking part in the sanctions confrontation. No restrictions on working with counterparties from Russia. Many of them, like ECN.broker, do not require qualified investor status to access options trading, futures, CFDs, currency pairs and other complex financial instruments.

Another traditional strong point of brokers working with ECN technology is the almost instant execution of orders and the absence of requotes. This advantage is achieved due to the fact that the investor and counterparty are brought together directly at the interbank market. Absence of intermediaries guarantees trader's transparency of performed deals, such brokers do not have even a theoretical possibility to start playing against their client.