Brokerage firm SSIF Equity Invest recently announced it has become market maker on the Contracts for Difference (CFD) market in Romania, being the first Romanian company to offer the full package for CFDs, according to the company. The brokerage firm will also continue its normal activity on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, 15 years after the firm's launch.

The company has increased its team with over 40 agents for financial services investments and plans to further develop it, after also changing the management. Cătălin Bușa took over the general manager seat, after moving from another brokerage firm, SSIF Rombell Securities.

In order to be a market maker on the CFD market, a brokerage firm has to have a minimum capital of EUR 730,000, send daily reports to the Romanian Securities Commission (CNVM) to describe all the CFD transactions. The other Romanian brokerage companies which offer CFD products for trading are intermediary companies, and executing the orders is done by their foreign partners, while SSIF Equity Invest gives Romanian clients a transparent environment, in which a local, regulated company is responsible for the transaction, Catalin Busa explained. A market maker is a company, or an individual, that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a financial instrument.

A contract for difference (or CFD) is a contract between two parties, normally described as the "buyer" and "seller", which stipulates that the seller will pay to the buyer the difference between the current value of an asset and its value at contract time. When applied to equities, such a contract is an equity derivative that allows traders to speculate on share price movements, without needing to own the actual shares.

The Romanian brokerage firm allows clients to open trading accounts with CFDs, with the minimum required amount of EUR 500, and using foreign currencies, shares, stock indexes and commodities as assets in the CFD contracts.

“We think the local financial market is at a turning point, we're reaching a period when brokerage firms that increase their market share will be able to ensure stable positions and future consistent growth,” said Catalin Busa, the new general manager of SSIF Equity Invest.

editor@romania-insider.com