Jakarta. Fullerton Markets, an online foreign exchange and commodity brokerage, seeks more customers in Indonesia as it plans to trade the country's crude palm oil, a top executive told Jakarta Globe last week.

"[We] look at the potential here, the biggest country in the Asean," Fullerton Markets chief executive Mario Singh said on Friday (17/02).

Singh, who has been known as a forex trader and educator, formed the Wellington-based company last year as a platform allowing people to trade currencies, stocks, gold, silver and oil.

Fullerton Markets is a straight-through processing (STP) broker that sends their customers' orders directly to banks or large brokers, known as liquidity providers, without running them through a dealing desk.

The New Zealand-regulated STP broker plugs the liquidity from different exchanges in Japan and Hong Kong. The company, Singh said, is planning to expand to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

"As we move around different countries, this is my job now to meet up with regulators and to speak with them and understand the licensing rules and regulations in different countries. Whether it's Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, we always want to make sure that we are compliant," he said.

Fullerton Markets has 10,000 clients from various countries outside New Zealand, mainly from Asia, including a small number of clients from Indonesia.

It does not accept traders from Myanmar, Laos, Papua New Guinea and Iran — countries which pose high investment risk.

The company's retail clients usually start from $100 to $5,000, while high-net-worth ones mostly trade at $50,000 to more than $1 million. Fullerton Markets offers segregated accounts that separate corporate and individual client funds. There is an independent trustee that guards the clients' funds against misappropriation.

To add extra protection, the company has a trustee liability insurance deal with AIG.

In and through his business activities, Singh also wants to educate others on trading and investment.

"The last thing I want is for the people to step into trading and don't understand what trading is," he said.