Apple Removes MT4 And MT5 From App Store

On the 23rd of September, Apple informed MetaQuotes, the developers of MT4 and MT5, of their intention to remove the popular trading apps from the App Store. Later on the same day, Apple removed MT4 and MT5 from the App Store.

While the apps are currently available on Google Play, they are no longer available on the App Store.

The move seems to be about the trading platforms not complying with review guidelines. For example, a recent article published in Forbes magazine detailed an online scam involving MT4. While there was no blame on MetaQuotes, the article quoted an Apple representative who explained there was an investigation into a complaint against the company.

MetaQuotes released MT4 in 2005, and the platform was aimed initially solely at forex trading. Upgrades followed to include CFD trading for multiple asset classes, including stocks, indices, commodities energies, and futures. The company released MT5 in 2010, which surpassed MT4 as their most popular platform in early 2021.

MT4 and MT5 combine for nearly eighty percent of the online trading market, and with that kind of coverage, a few bad apples are to be expected, if you’ll pardon the pun!

The fact that the scammers chose MT4 had nothing to do with MetaQuotes. The same scam involved iPhones. So we might as well ban iPhones while we’re at it. Makes no sense.

Company ownership and white label policies are more plausible reasons behind the move.

While MetaQuotes is based in Cyprus, the company’s owners are Russian. This has led to speculation that the move by Apple might be connected more to the situation in Ukraine than security reviews. That’s quite a stretch, though, and it does make some pretty sweeping assumptions.

White Label policies may also be a contributing factor. It seems MetaQuotes is looking into its compliance procedures to strengthen onboarding for White Labels. While that can only be good for the industry, the repercussions could be severe.

Many new brokers choose offshore jurisdictions to start their operations to take advantage of the significant financial savings in these regions.

While it may be much easier to launch your operations from these offshore jurisdictions, opening corporate bank accounts for your operations can be tricky.

A lack of a corporate bank account would be a major hurdle to overcome and would undoubtedly cause significant delays in launching operations under the new MetaQuotes compliance procedures.

MT4 and MT5 remain the standard all other trading platforms need to reach to be successful. Of course, there are several excellent alternatives to MetaQuotes solutions, but the comparison will always be there.

While the move by Apple to remove MT4 and MT5 from the App Store could open the door for more brokers to move to these alternatives, according to the company, MetaQuotes is in talks with Apple to find a remedy.

Without a resolution, one possible solution would be to install MT4 and MT5 from third-party sites. While not as simple to do as on an Android phone, installing apps from outside the Apple App Store isn’t impossible. Please keep in mind that it will void your phone’s warranty and make it difficult to upgrade to newer versions of iOS, so probably not the best solution.

The move must have caused significant disruption to MetaQuotes’ business and some major concerns among retail forex traders.

While users with existing apps installed on their iPhones will still be able to use the platforms, updates will not be available in the App Store.

MT4 and MT5 are available in Google Play and Mac and Windows-based desktops.

While it may trivialize the problem, perhaps the easiest short-term solution would be to use an Android device for mobile trading. Of course, that won’t be a route many iPhone users would enjoy, but it is an option.

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We’ve been finding solutions since 2012, and we’ve got pretty good and making things work. So why not drop us a line and see how we can help you navigate this latest issue? We’d love to show you what we can do for your brokerage.