KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

RPM Forex has launched its RPM Forex Gold Bot and a new website. The automated trading software is priced from GBP £495.

The London-based developer says the product is aimed at forex and gold traders, automating market analysis and trade execution through algorithmic systems. The bot monitors markets continuously throughout the trading week and executes predefined strategies rather than relying on manual input.

The launch marks the market entry of a new financial technology business focused on automated trading software. RPM Forex is positioning the Gold Bot as its main product to tap demand for tools that promise faster responses to market movements in currencies and gold.

Automated trading has attracted growing interest among retail and professional traders seeking to reduce manual workload and eliminate emotional decision-making. In fast-moving markets, software that can scan live price data and execute trades without delay has become a more common part of trading strategies.

RPM Forex says its system analyses price action, trends, and trading signals in real time before automatically opening or managing trades. It operates 24 hours a day, five days a week, reflecting standard forex market hours.

The software is being offered directly through the company’s website, where potential customers can review product details and make purchases. The starting price of GBP £495 places it in a segment of the retail trading software market where providers often sell direct to individual traders rather than through brokers or institutional platforms.

Market focus

The initial emphasis on gold is notable because the metal remains one of the most actively traded instruments among speculative retail traders, particularly during periods of market volatility and shifting expectations for interest rates, inflation and geopolitical risk. Currency trading is also one of the largest and most liquid areas of global financial markets, making it a natural target for automation products.

The software is intended to address common trading problems, including hesitation, fear, impulsive decisions and overtrading. By using set rules to govern entries and exits, automated systems seek to ensure consistency, although traders still face risks associated with market swings, execution conditions, and strategy design.

RPM Forex lists continuous market analysis, trade execution, algorithmic decision-making and website access among the product’s main features. It is also designed for both newer and more experienced traders, a broad target market that has become common among sellers of retail trading tools.

Guy Shotton, Chief Executive Officer of RPM Forex, set out the company’s rationale for the launch.

“Our goal at RPM Forex is to bridge the gap between advanced trading technology and everyday traders. The RPM Forex Gold Bot has been engineered to provide users with a powerful automated trading solution that combines intelligent analysis, precision execution, and around-the-clock market monitoring. We believe automation is transforming the future of trading, and our platform is designed to help traders participate in that evolution,” said Shotton.

Growth area

Interest in algorithmic trading tools has risen alongside wider use of software across investing and brokerage services. Retail traders can now access charting systems, automated strategies and signal services that were once more limited to specialist users. However, the quality and transparency of such offerings vary widely across the market.

For new entrants such as RPM Forex, the challenge will be to distinguish their products in a crowded field that includes trading bots, expert advisors, copy trading systems and broker-provided automation tools. Pricing, reliability, ease of use and evidence of how a strategy behaves in different market conditions are likely to shape take-up.

RPM Forex plans to add further software tools for traders across multiple markets as it expands its range. For now, its commercial focus remains on the Gold Bot, which is available immediately through its site at prices starting from GBP £495.

Cyber attacks are the top concern for UK SMEs, according to Hiscox. Its survey found that 38% of respondents ranked cyber attacks or data breaches as the risk most likely to keep them awake at night.

The findings are based on a study of 1,000 UK small and medium-sized enterprises and form part of a wider survey of 6,250 small business owners across six countries.

The research also highlights wider pressure on smaller companies, with owners facing rising costs, staff issues and legal risks. Overall, 92% of UK business owners said worries about risks to their business were affecting their sleep.

Inflation or rising costs came a close second among UK concerns at 37%, followed by workplace accidents or employee injuries at 35%. Economic downturn and theft or property damage each scored 33%. Natural disasters such as floods or fires were cited by 29%, lawsuits or legal claims by 28%, and staff shortages by 27%.

The data also points to a gap between awareness of threats and understanding of insurance cover. Among UK SMEs, 77% said they did not understand cyber insurance, while 80% said they did not understand professional indemnity cover.

That lack of confidence comes despite cyber risk topping the list of concerns and legal claims troubling more than a quarter of businesses. Globally, only 20% of SMEs correctly identified what professional indemnity insurance covers, the report found.

Hiscox said 55% of UK SMEs have a protection gap, suggesting that concern about risk does not always translate into a clear understanding of what insurance would respond to in practice.

Alana Muir, Head of Cyber at Hiscox, said the findings showed a widening disconnect between anxiety about threats and preparedness for their financial and operational consequences.

“Small businesses today are navigating a more complex risk environment than ever before: evolving cyber threats, changing workforces, rising legal costs, and the weight of knowing these risks exist without always knowing how to manage them. But awareness alone doesn’t equal protection. What the Global Protection Gap Report shows is the growing gap between businesses that know something could go wrong and those that truly understand whether they’d be covered if it did.

“Unsurprisingly, the areas where SMEs are most exposed are often the ones they feel least confident about. Cyber is a prime example. It tops the list of concerns, yet 77% of small business owners admit they don’t fully understand what a cyber policy covers. The same is true of professional indemnity, where eight in ten (80%) SMEs say they don’t understand the cover, despite legal claims keeping more than a quarter of them awake at night.

“The reality is that misunderstanding your cover can be almost as costly as having none at all. A business that believes it’s protected, but isn’t, may be less likely to seek advice or review its policies, which can leave gaps in cover,” Muir said.

Cyber cover

Muir also warned smaller firms against assuming they are too small to attract cyber criminals, noting that the practical impact of an incident can extend well beyond any immediate financial loss.

“It’s easy to assume your business may not be a primary target for cybercriminals. However, cyber attacks are not limited by business size, and SMEs are increasingly part of the threat landscape.

“Make sure your policy covers the full fallout of an incident, including data recovery, business interruption and customer notification costs, not just the immediate financial impact,” Muir said.

The insurer also highlighted other areas where cover may no longer match how a business operates. Employers’ liability insurance is usually a legal requirement for businesses with staff, including temporary or seasonal workers, and some micro-business owners remain unaware of that obligation.

On property insurance, the report noted that policies taken out when a company was smaller may no longer reflect the value of current stock, equipment or premises. Businesses operating from more than one site should also check whether cover applies across all locations where stock or equipment is stored or used.

Leadership strain

The research was accompanied by commentary from CAPE People Development, a consultancy that works with founders and small business leaders. Its co-founders and directors said risk often remains concentrated in the hands of owners even as companies grow more complex.

“In our work with small business owners, we consistently see that they are incredibly capable and committed. But those strengths can disguise the build-up of pressure. It becomes one more decision, one more approval and one more thing that only they can sign off.

“When you’re deeply invested, financially, emotionally and reputationally, it’s easy to blur the line between ‘I care about this’ and ‘I must personally hold this’. As businesses grow, complexity and risk increase, yet many continue holding the same level of personal responsibility, only now the exposure is greater,” said Naomi Regan, Co-Founder and Director at CAPE People Development.

Lynsey Kitching, Co-Founder and Director at CAPE People Development, said owners often delay reviewing governance and risk because immediate work takes priority.

“The mistake many small business owners make is waiting for things to ‘calm down’ before reviewing governance, cover or strategic risk. In reality, things rarely calm down. Urgent work will always feel more compelling than important work.

“Risk isn’t reduced when it’s held in one person’s hands, it’s reduced when responsibility sits in the right place and is clearly owned. If responsibility isn’t clearly named, it will drift back to the small business owner.

“Build a regular rhythm into the calendar and treat it as non-negotiable. If it isn’t protected properly, it will be squeezed out. We often use the ‘glass jar’ model to illustrate this. If you fill your time with ‘sand’ (the reactive, day-to-day demands), there isn’t enough room for the ‘rocks’ (the strategic priorities, risk reviews and governance tasks). They need space allocated before reactive tasks fill the day. Protecting your energy is part of protecting your business,” Kitching said.

KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

Some 62% of UK financial advisers are comfortable with agentic AI being used in investment platforms, according to research by GBST based on a survey of 178 advisers carried out by the lang cat.

The findings point to growing acceptance of AI in wealth management technology. But adoption in practice will depend on how well the tools fit within regulatory and oversight frameworks and existing platform controls.

GBST argued that the debate around AI in financial services has become too broad, with attention often focused on disruption rather than the constraints facing firms that manage large customer bases and significant sums of invested assets. In wealth management, any wider use of AI will need to sit within systems already built to handle compliance, risk and operational complexity.

That distinction matters because many of the industry’s remaining administrative processes still rely on manual intervention. Firms have made progress in automating routine work over the past 15 years, yet delays, costs, and operational risks remain, as people still have to step in to complete tasks.

Regulated use

Regulation is likely to determine the pace of adoption over the next two years. Wealth managers are expected to favour AI models and tools that can produce explainable, repeatable and auditable outcomes, particularly where customer money and long-term financial outcomes are involved.

GBST identified five areas where AI is likely to affect wealth management platforms: the influence of regulation on deployment, the use of AI for complex manual administration, tighter limits on autonomous decision-making, growing demand for transparency, and a shift towards embedding AI within core platform technology rather than using separate external tools.

Control is a common theme across those areas. Highly regulated firms are unlikely to adopt open-ended autonomous systems that can act without defined boundaries or human oversight. Instead, GBST expects interest to focus on agentic AI designed to perform specific tasks within defined limits.

Back-office focus

Some of the clearest uses for AI are likely to emerge in back-office functions rather than in tools directly visible to investors. These include high-volume administrative work that is difficult to standardise across firms because operating models and processes vary widely from one wealth manager to another.

That variation has often limited the effectiveness of traditional rules-based automation. AI could help firms manage more of that complexity, provided it is deployed within existing governance structures and can be closely monitored.

Another issue is where the technology sits. Many current AI applications operate outside core systems, creating challenges for integration and oversight. Wealth managers increasingly want AI built into the main platform environment so the same safeguards used elsewhere in the business also apply to AI-driven processes.

The findings suggest the conversation in the sector is moving from experimentation to operational deployment. But they also indicate that enthusiasm alone will not determine take-up, especially where firms must demonstrate to regulators and clients how decisions are reached, and processes are controlled.

“At the moment, there’s too much focus on the disruption AI could cause and not enough on how it can be used safely to transform complex, manual processes. Platforms and wealth managers in the UK have come a long way in automating routine processes in the last 15 years, but human intervention is still required in too many situations, adding risk, cost and delay,” Rob DeDominicis, Chief Executive of GBST, said.

“AI can deliver the next round of efficiency, but only if it operates within existing controls, executing processes consistently and transparently. Firms are starting to move away from AI experimentation and are looking for real operational impact. But for AI to become genuinely valuable, we need it to meet required industry standards. We’re responsible for millions of people’s long-term financial security so there’s no room for shortcuts.”