“Japan
was chosen as a market completely untouched by the prop trading boom,” David
Varga, the CEO of Fintokei, told FinanceMagnates.com. “It’s not easy to get
in.”
That was
three years ago. Today, Fintokei declares it has paid out more than $15 million to
Japanese traders, with one individual logging 120 separate payouts from the
platform and another collecting over $360,000 in total rewards.
The Czech
prop trading firm, backed
by CFD broker Purple Trading, entered Japan in early 2023 when prop trading
had virtually no name recognition in the country. What followed was, by Varga’s
own admission, a slow burn. But one that is now paying off in a way few prop
firms anywhere in the world can match.
Prop Firm Entering Market
That Nobody Else Wanted
Japanese
traders didn’t embrace the concept quickly. They rarely do. “They are
generally very slow at adopting new things from abroad,” Varga
acknowledged in a previous interview with FinanceMagnates.com.
Fintokei’s
response was to out-localize every competitor: native Japanese-speaking
support, local marketing partners, in-person events, and a product structure
deliberately shaped to meet Japanese trading habits and expectations.
The effort
has produced a community of thousands of prop traders across Japan, with
average individual payouts approaching $4,000. More tellingly, Japanese traders
are outperforming their European counterparts on both the frequency and value
of payouts, a result Varga attributes to the discipline and precision Japanese
retail traders bring to the markets.
When Varga
spoke to FinanceMagnates.com in October 2024, he revealed that
60% of the platform’s then-20,000+ traders were based in Japan, and was blunt about the
competitive gap:
“There
are a few companies that, as far as I know, have Japanese websites, but they
usually don’t even have proper customer support – it’s either AI or Google
Translator or something like that.”
3 years of Fintokei. 🚀3 years of accelerating trading success.Thousands of traders. Millions paid out.One strong team behind it all. 💜Thanks for being part of the ride.We’re just getting started.#Fintokei #3years #AccelerateYourTradingSuccess pic.twitter.com/uS7Nda1wJA
— Fintokei (@fintokei) February 18, 2026
Paying Taxes While Rivals
Look Away
Fintokei’s
compliance posture is where its claims get pointed. The firm says it is
VAT-registered in Japan and has paid local taxes there since day one, something
Varga suggests most, if not all, competing prop firms have skipped, whether out
of ignorance or intent, and not only in Japan.
“We
have deliberately invested significant effort and money in establishing a
robust framework to ensure regulatory compliance, local awareness, and
stability for our customers,” Varga said. “Our objective is not
short-term profit, but long-term sustainability for traders and the healthy
development of the industry as a whole in Japan.”
The firm
has worked alongside Japanese legal and tax advisers throughout its presence
there – a structural investment that most prop firms, operating globally with
minimal local footprint, have little incentive to replicate.
A Payout Record That Is
Hard to Argue With
The
120-payout trader is an outlier, but Fintokei’s broader payout track record has
become a core part of its market positioning. After launching
instant withdrawals in mid-2025, the firm claims a 99.9% withdrawal success rate and says it has never
rejected a legitimate payout request.
“Therefore,
we don’t reject payouts when the payout is actually due… as it’s the
cornerstone of the whole prop trading business,” Varga said. Rather than
disputing withdrawals, Fintokei says it manages risk upstream, flagging
high-risk behavior during evaluation and capping leverage or daily profit
limits before a funded account is ever at issue.
That
discipline matters in a sector under increasing scrutiny. Prop Firm Match tracked
roughly $325 million in total payouts across the industry in 2025, but acknowledged the data excluded
major players including FTMO and The5ers. Meanwhile, the firm’s own
revenue rose 13-fold
in 2024, with
active traders surging 175%.
Industry That “Went a
Little Too Wild”
Varga has
been one of the more candid critics of the prop trading sector’s growing pains.
In earlier comments, he said the industry had “gone a little too wild in
terms of competition, marketing, way of communication or even running the whole
business operations, including some dirty practices happening.”
He has
long argued that
broker-backed prop firms offer a more sustainable model, one where the firm’s incentives
are better aligned with the trader’s long-term success.
“We
foresee a more serious and professionalized approach is the future for prop
trading, with an emphasis on transparency and stability,” he said.
“Whether it will be enforced by regulation, or evolve naturally.”
Fintokei
began expanding
beyond Japan and Central Europe in 2024, targeting Australia, broader Europe, and
Southeast Asia. But Japan, still early in its adoption curve, still producing
traders with more patience and discipline than almost anywhere else, remains
both its biggest market and, by its own account, its most important one.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
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