OANDA Securities Japan has replaced its sole representative director with a two-person leadership structure that brings the trading group’s Singapore-based Asia-Pacific chief directly into the management of its regulated Japanese entity.
In an October 6 announcement, OANDA Securities said Yoshiharu Yanagisawa stepped down as Representative Director effective September 30. Akira Miyamura and Philip Waters were appointed Representative Directors on the same date.
The effective date is September 30, but the change was first publicly disclosed by OANDA Japan on October 6, making it a fresh corporate development rather than a retrospective executive move.
The unusual part is not simply that Yanagisawa has left. OANDA Japan has moved from one representative director to two, and one of those executives already carries responsibility well beyond Japan.
Waters is OANDA’s Managing Director for Asia Pacific and Emerging Markets. Based in Singapore, he oversees commercial strategy, growth and expansion across Japan, Singapore, Australia and key emerging markets.
His new formal role inside the Japanese entity therefore potentially creates a much more direct link between OANDA’s regional APAC strategy and the governance of one of its most important regulated markets.
OANDA Gives No Specific Reason for the Leadership Change
OANDA Japan’s announcement is concise.
The broker said the new management structure would help it respond rapidly to changing market conditions and provide higher-quality financial services. It did not explain why Yanagisawa departed, why two representative directors were appointed rather than one, or how responsibilities will be divided between Miyamura and Waters.
There is also no indication in the announcement of a regulatory problem or disruption to customer accounts.
That makes it important not to overstate what the appointment proves.
Waters joining OANDA Japan’s formal leadership could reflect tighter APAC coordination, succession planning, a change in Japanese commercial strategy or a wider organisational restructuring. OANDA has not publicly identified one of those explanations as the reason.
What can be established is that Waters’ responsibilities already span the region. His existing OANDA role covers commercial strategy and expansion in Japan alongside Singapore, Australia and emerging markets, meaning his appointment is not that of an outside director unfamiliar with the Japanese business.
Japan Is Now Formally Linked to OANDA’s Regional Commercial Leadership
The change potentially matters because a representative director in a Japanese company is more than a ceremonial title.
The position carries formal authority to represent the company, making Waters’ appointment materially different from simply having an APAC executive overseeing Japan from a group-management perspective.
OANDA Japan is a locally regulated entity offering forex, stock-index CFDs and commodity CFDs. Its public company information lists registration with Japan’s Kanto Local Finance Bureau and memberships including the Financial Futures Association of Japan and Japan Securities Dealers Association.
Historically, the entity had operated with Yanagisawa as its sole Representative Director. OANDA’s own regulatory disclosures show him in that position for years.
The new structure therefore changes both personnel and governance architecture.
For OANDA, one possible benefit is faster alignment between Japanese product decisions and regional strategy. A regional executive with direct representative authority can potentially shorten the distance between APAC commercial planning and decisions made inside the local regulated company.
That may become increasingly important as global brokers attempt to manage common technology and product infrastructure while still adapting to highly localized regulations.
The Move Comes During a Significant Platform Transition in Japan
The timing is particularly interesting because OANDA Japan is already making a substantial technology change.
In September, the broker stopped accepting new orders through MetaTrader 4 and told clients that MT4 service will end entirely after trading closes on November 27.
OANDA cited tightening cybersecurity standards and the need to strengthen protection of customer assets and personal information. It is encouraging MT4 clients to move toward MetaTrader 5, while some customers can continue through fxTrade or TradingView.
The migration affects an established part of OANDA Japan’s customer base and requires account, position and platform transitions over the coming weeks.
There is no evidence that the MT4 decision and the representative-director changes are connected. But together they show that OANDA Japan is entering the final quarter of 2026 with meaningful changes occurring at both the operating and management levels.
The platform transition also reflects a broader shift across retail trading infrastructure. MetaTrader 5 has been receiving substantially deeper functionality as MetaQuotes directs more development toward its newer platform, while brokers increasingly face decisions about how long legacy trading systems remain appropriate for regulated clients.
OANDA Has Been Reshaping Itself Since the FTMO Acquisition
The management change also needs to be viewed against OANDA’s broader ownership transition.
FTMO completed its acquisition of OANDA from CVC in December 2025 after securing regulatory approvals across the group’s international footprint.
At the time, FTMO said OANDA would remain a standalone business, combining OANDA’s regulated brokerage operations with FTMO’s modern prop-trading expertise inside a wider trading group.
The structure has nevertheless evolved during 2026.
In March, OANDA transferred its OANDA Prop Trader activity toward FTMO, allowing the brokerage to refocus on its core regulated trading business. Later that month, former OANDA CEO Gavin Bambury departed the leadership role, with FTMO founders Otakar Šuffner and Marek Vašíček becoming co-CEOs of OANDA.
OANDA said at the time that country operations and teams otherwise remained unchanged.
The October Japan appointment therefore becomes noteworthy because it is another visible change at the level of a regulated regional business following the acquisition.
That still does not establish that FTMO ordered the restructuring. But it places the Japanese change within a period in which OANDA’s group leadership, product boundaries and operating model have already been adjusted.
Waters Brings a Regional Growth Mandate Into the Japanese Entity
Waters’ background also makes the appointment commercially interesting.
He joined OANDA in 2020 to lead its emerging-markets business before taking responsibility for Asia Pacific in 2022. Before OANDA, he spent years at IG, including senior roles after relocating to Singapore.
OANDA describes his current mandate as leading commercial strategy, growth and market expansion throughout Asia Pacific and emerging markets.
That is a different profile from appointing only a locally focused compliance or operational executive.
Japan is one of the largest and most mature retail leveraged-trading markets in the world, but maturity creates its own problem: established brokers must compete for traders in a heavily regulated market where simple geographic expansion is no longer enough.
Product mix, technology, pricing, customer acquisition and retention become increasingly important.
Competitor IG has been dealing with a similar strategic question. Its Japanese operation changed leadership earlier this year after years of localisation and growth, highlighting how global brokers increasingly need dedicated strategies for attracting and retaining Japanese retail traders rather than simply extending global products into the country.
Regional Integration Can Help, but Japan Still Requires Local Execution
A stronger regional structure offers clear advantages.
OANDA can potentially share product development, marketing expertise, technology and operating processes across Singapore, Australia and Japan instead of treating every market as a completely independent business.
That can lower duplication and accelerate product deployment.
Other large trading groups are pursuing similar economies of scale. The broader industry is expanding product sets and trying to extract more value from each funded client, as seen in Trading 212’s continuing push into additional trading products.
But Japan places limits on how far standardisation can go.
Its margin rules, product regulations, disclosure requirements and retail trading culture differ substantially from other APAC markets. A strategy that works in Singapore or Australia cannot automatically be transferred to Tokyo.
The best interpretation of the two-director structure may therefore be a combination of both levels: local management through Miyamura alongside direct regional participation through Waters.
Whether that is actually how responsibilities will be split remains undisclosed.
Regulated Brokers Are Putting More Weight on Governance
The appointment also comes as governance and regulatory infrastructure are becoming more important competitive assets across the retail trading sector.
Operating a broker across multiple jurisdictions means maintaining separate licensed entities, local management, capital requirements, reporting systems and customer protections while still trying to run a commercially coherent global business.
That tension has become more visible as regulators increase scrutiny of cross-border brokerage structures. In the UK, for example, an FCA crackdown has pushed a group of CFD firms toward closure over concerns surrounding how UK regulatory status was being used.
For groups such as OANDA, the alternative is expensive but potentially valuable: maintain genuinely regulated local businesses while integrating them closely enough that technology, risk management and commercial strategy can still operate at scale.
Putting an APAC managing director directly into the legal leadership of the Japanese subsidiary fits that model, even though OANDA has not publicly described the appointment in those terms.
The Next Clues Will Come From What OANDA Changes, Not the Titles
The October 6 disclosure answers who now represents OANDA Japan but leaves the more interesting strategic questions open.
Investors and competitors should watch whether the leadership change is followed by changes in product launches, pricing, marketing, platform migration or closer coordination between Japan and OANDA’s other APAC businesses.
It will also matter whether Miyamura emerges primarily as the local operating leader while Waters provides regional strategic oversight, or whether both take active executive roles inside the Japanese business.
For now, the facts are narrower.
Yanagisawa has departed. Miyamura and Waters have replaced a single representative-director structure with two representatives. And OANDA’s Singapore-based head of Asia Pacific and Emerging Markets now has direct formal authority inside the Japanese regulated entity.
That does not prove a sweeping restructuring of OANDA Japan.
But against the backdrop of FTMO’s ownership, changes at OANDA’s group leadership level and Japan’s ongoing migration away from MT4, it is more significant than an ordinary executive appointment.
The key question is now whether October’s governance change is simply succession—or the first visible sign that OANDA intends to run Japan as a more tightly integrated part of its broader Asia-Pacific strategy.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
Johan contributes news and analysis designed to help readers understand not only what happened, but why a development matters and how it may affect the wider financial landscape.