iFX Expo 2018 - coverage from the Cyprus exhibition

On 22-24 in Cyprus, in the business city of Limassol, there was a trade fair called iFX Expo - which by the organizer are called the largest financial fair B2B (that is, companies are exhibiting there for other companies, not for retail clients). Therefore, if someone is a trader and would like to meet other traders or brokers there, he would be disappointed. 

iFX Expo has been continuously organized since the 2012 year and twice a year. One edition takes place in the aforementioned Limassol and the other in Hong Kong.

The fair took place earlier in the hotel, but since 2016 it has been organized at the Spyros Kyprianou Athletic Center sports facility, as interest in this event, which is located on the outskirts of the city, has grown steadily:

However, before the fair began, the organizers invited all participants to collect their identifiers. The entire registration was carried out via the internet, and then after printing the return email you had to report on the first day of the first prepared events - Welcome Party - before which you could pick up the ID (all so that you do not create unnecessary queues before the fairs).

Receipt of IDs was quick and efficient.

The organizers of the iFX Expo themselves say about this event that it is the largest event of the year. And basically, it's hard to disagree with them. On the first day in the beach bar it got really crowded, and sirens floated in the pool;). No, the dwarves were not ...

This fairly interesting way has already started the fair, because there was no end to business, networking and sales talks. It was also an opportunity to meet people who met at other conferences, industry friends or company representatives. iFX Expo certainly favors establishing contacts in a relaxed and casual atmosphere.

Let's come to the merits. As I mentioned at the beginning, an individual client does not have much to look for here, unless he wants to meet with friends from the industry, go to a party, or just see how it looks like an institutional website and often be able to talk about processes that are happening "to the kitchen".

The whole attention was directed to the exhibitors' stands and how else to drink bars or a mini club at the fairground. In contrast, lectures took place in relatively small rooms and focused only a handful of people compared to all present.

Meanwhile, the main plate of the sports facility with the stands was completely filled with exhibitors and advertisements, which can be seen even on a short video presenting the venue from the entrance to one of the stands:

Now the most important issue - who exhibited?

Well, the most companies that could be observed on this edition of iFX Expo are companies from the payment sector and cryptocurrencies and combinations of these two sectors, namely payment processors in cryptocurrencies. For example, you run cafes and want to accept payments simply and quickly in bitcoin? No problem - this solution was to be found at the fair. These companies probably occupy the largest space (on previous editions, as their participants assured, crypto was not so popular, and forex dominated). 

The following industries are liquidity providers and this is also a large part of crypto. So you want to have your own crypto currency exchange and are looking for someone who will give you the liquidity for the instruments you want to offer? With such companies you could talk there. Of course, there were also liquidity companies on FX, but crypto dominated. There were also companies from ICO, including public relations for ICO, ready educational portals for brokers, video content creators and well-known portals like Finance Magnates, Forex Live or Investing.com.

On the other hand, unofficially, without the stands, the leaders of the leads moved about the ROPE and other regulations too much, but I will not write about this anymore.

The first day ended with a loud party, which resulted in the fact that the next day at the fair there were definitely fewer people and, of course, the Closing Party took place the next day - if there were not enough ...

Summation

iFX Expo is a place designed for companies for companies and it is an international, and preferably a global one. It is also a place where competitors can see what others offer. Small "spying" what and how others do was also on the agenda here.  It is also a place where a large part of people have already talked about, on which they settle their affairs, and the rest is only an addition. The loose atmosphere of the entire trade fair makes business relations much easier here, because "stiff" is certainly not the case in Limassol.