Lately my LinkedIn feed is full of the same job post. Broker looking for an "affiliate manager" or "partner manager" — and somewhere in the requirements, quietly, "must have an existing book of clients" or "portfolio ready to onboard." I've worked in this industry long enough to know exactly what that line means. It's not really asking for a manager. It's asking someone to bring the clients they built at their last broker, fast.

“Does spread matter? What is spread, actually?” asked one trader I met during a forex broker seminar.

A forex or crypto broker deals with client funds, KYC documents, withdrawals, leverage, trading risk, IB partners, compliance rules, complaints, and public trust. One wrong automation does not only create a bad user experience. It can create a legal issue, a reputational issue, license issue or a very expensive business mistake.

Let’s be honest here. OOH like billboards, digital OOH, and video billboards is not cheap. To make it worse, it is hard to measure properly, let alone expect some instant direct return from it. If you are a marketer in a forex broker or fintech company, and someone says, “let’s put up a billboard and see how much FTD we get,” your jaw will probably drop for a couple of seconds for no clear reason. So the real question is not whether OOH looks nice. The real question is whether forex brokers or fintech brands in Indonesia actually need it.

At one point, I asked a client how they first came across the broker they’re using now, and what made them decide to open an account. They just smiled and said, “Honestly? Super simple. I just asked ChatGPT which brokers are under Bappebti, and this broker showed up on the list.”

One day in 2024, my LinkedIn beeped with a message: “Hey, we are from (liquidity provider). We are interested in you leading our expansion plan to SEA.” Interesting offer.