CEO Interviews

Max Rofagha, the CEO and founder of Finimize, explains the great wealth transfer and how his financial analysis app helps educate investors. We discuss what life at Finimize has been like since being acquired by ABRDN, the growth of Finimize’s B2B business, where their subscribers come from and how curated content can help reduce asymmetry

Richard Dana, CEO and founder of Tembo, discusses the acquisition of NUDE Lifetime ISA and the rebranding to the Tembo Lifetime ISA. Tembo aims to help people struggling with affordability in the housing market by offering alternative options and finding ways to accelerate the home-buying process. Video Podcast The Tembo Lifetime ISA allows customers to

Bonds are all the rage at the moment and can be an excellent addition to anyone’s portfolio. However, compared to mainstream investments they often get overlooked as you have traditionally needed big pockets to get involved. WiseAlpha has been pioneering the concept of fractional investing making corporate bonds more accessible. As it’s been nearly five

Freetrade has just launched UK Treasury Bills for their customers, which have previously only been available to UK investors in minimum order sizes of £500,000. So, I have a chat with Adam Dodds, the Freetrade CEO, about how to invest in UK Treasury Bills on Freetrade and how investors can benefit from them. You can

Stockomendation is a share-tipping site I’ve followed for ages. In fact, most of the tipsters on it I’ve followed for even longer, but in a very fragmented way. Dipping in and out of various websites, publications and social media feeds to see who is saying what about the “hot stocks”. But, then along came Stockomendation

Ben Chemla, the founder and CEO of Shares.io tells us about why he set up the share dealing community app and where he hopes it will sit within the marketplace of DIY investing and social trading. We also find out a bit more about Ben, what he likes to invest in, get some tips on

If you’ve ever wondered what the best funds are to invest in, TILLIT may have the answer. They have launched an investment platform with a universe of what they belive are the best-in-breed 100 or so funds across various asset classes and regions. I talked to Felicia Hjertman, the CEO and co-founder of TILLIT, which

I’ve known Andrew for around 10 years, or I should say I’ve known of Andrew for around 10 year. I first came across him when his company, integrated a sentiment dashboard for the US elections into a trading platform I was using. I was working at a similar sort of firm then, Investors Intelligence. We

Ethical and impact investing apps like Clim8 (closing) & Tulipshare (pivoting) have found it difficult to gain traction and onboard enough customers to grow as sustainable businesses, but one platform that is bucking the trend and moving into ETFs is CIRCA5000. CIRCA5000 are launching their own range of IMPACT ETFs, which enable investors to buy

There has never been a better time to be an investor, if you ignore what has happened to the markets recently. New investing apps are launching all the time which make it easier, quicker and cheaper to invest than ever before. You can now buy shares for free, pay no account fees and there is

It’s now easier than ever to set up an investment app. You just need a developer to design one that sits on top of an investment provider like WealthKernel, Seccl or DriveWealth. Then you need to get regulated, which is hard and expensive, or you can piggyback off someone elses’ regulatory status under the umbrella

I’ve dealt for a few activist investment funds as a broker over the years. The ones I’d deal for would accumulate large positions in companies through various different desks around The City, then give them up to us as their prime broker. They’d do this for two reasons, one, to keep their buying spread out

One of the most important things about managing your money is how much of it you have, and how much of whatever you want you get for it, and that couldn’t be more relevant in foreign exchange. If you are sending Sterling to Dollars, you want to know how many Dollars you get for your

Catherine McQueen talks to Ann Hunt who founded Chasing Returns, now part of StoneX exclusively available to City Index and Forex.com as Performance Analytics about how it helps make traders better. What does performance analytics do? Performance analytics is a suite of products to help people trade better. It focuses on, three key things. The

There is a juxtaposition within the pension world. That of you must do something immediately, but you must then do nothing. And you must take on some risk otherwise you risk losing out.  In this interview, we talk to Chris Eastwood the CO-Founder of Penfold a digital pension app on why you should engage with

Should you put stocks in your children’s stockings this year? With Christmas around the corner, most children would gawk if you told them that for their present this year you’d opened them a JISA and put in the £500 you were going to spend on a PS5 and would do so every year until they

One of the most “disrupted” markets of the last ten years has been the money transfer industry. Money transfer apps, peer-to-peer currency networks, and off the rack white label solutions from a new nimble breed of fintechs have reduced customer fees, improved exchange rates and speeded up transfer times. But when it comes to money,

Pensions are big business at the moment. Partly because people are generally taking more interest in their finances, but also because there is a convergence of technology and service. Pensions have always been seen as a background investment, one not to be tinkered with. But as technology helps highlight the excessive costs from legacy platforms

Why did you set up Multiply.ai? Before I set up Multiply I was a derivatives trader for many years. The last two years I spent in the banking industry, I got very close to the retail side of the business, back at RBS, so I covered NatWest in Coutts in Addlestone. I saw first-hand the

Since this interview Global Reach has been acquired by Corpay How did you get started in foreign exchange? In 2005 four of us founded FC Exchange, then in 2010, I bought out two of the others.  From then, my business partner, Martin Steenkamp, and I ran the business together until 2016. For 11 years, we

James Pinkney, CEO of Key Currency tells us about what makes them different, the biggest mistakes he has seen people make over the years, and what they can do about them. Plus what they should look for when choosing a currency broker. What’s makes Key Currency different from other currency brokers? Key Currency is owner-operated.

One of the major frustrations for private investors is that it’s hard to invest in early-stage fintech firms.  Sometimes by the time a company has listed on the stock exchange, a large part of the exponential growth has already taken place. There is of course equity crowdfunding, but most of those companies are either pre-revenue

There is a big push at the moment for investing for good. Not just ethical investing, where you try not to invest in bad things, but rather only investing in good things. Being responsible and sustainable is hard,  the CMA has reported that 40% of green claims companies make on their websites are not true

With currency brokers seemingly growing on trees thanks to the advance of fintech solutions we talk to Cedric Menager, the seasoned tech entrepreneurs about why PagoFX does things better. What separates PagoFX from all the other currency transfer providers out there? PagoFX is an international payment service for customers now in the UK, Belgium and

Mark Slater, Chairman of Slater Investments tells us about the highs and lows of being a fund manager, his best and worst investments and what private investors can do to become better investors. How did you get into fund management? I was always interested in investment from a young age because my father would talk

There is a lot happening with pensions at the moment. The imminent introduction of the “pensions dashboard” will give people a clearer vision of their retirement investments than ever before and every day a new challenger brand is launching to democratise the pensions industry. In this interview, we speak to Lindsey Rix, the CEO of

As CFDs and leveraged trading continues to come under fire from the regulators for being inappropriate for the majority of inexperienced investors I have a chat with José Carlos Gonzalez, the founder and CEO of Leverageshares.com on why his ETFs are different. His Leverage Shares are ETFs that allow investors to get 2x and 3x

At what point do robo-advisors become wealth managers? We have a chat with Giovanni Daprà the co-founder and CEO of Moneyfarm to find out what it’s been like to set up and run one of the largest new fintech investment platforms and what he hopes the business will eventually become. Why did you found Moneyfarm?

As the world has adapted to “the new normal” instead of meeting managers for lunch in the West End we had to settle for a chat on Zoom. In this interview with Jamie Ross, fund manager of the £320m Henderson EuroTrust plc, we discuss poker, the “swings, and roundabout” nature of virtual meetings, why active

In our latest CEO interview, we talk to Andrew Russell the new CEO of Robo-advisor Wealthify. Andrew has recently taken over from the original co-founder and CEO Richard Theo, who stepped down after the acquisition of the robo-advisor by Aviva. I discuss with Andrew the challenges of switching savers to investors, helping people understand the

In our latest CEO interview, we hear from Crawford Taylor, the founder of digital savings account Nude, which helps young people save to get on the property ladder. Nude has recently closed another round of investment raising over £3.5m from more than 800 investors on the equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs. Why did you set up

In our latest CEO interview, we talk to Arun Mehra, the founder of Samera Business Advisors on setting up his business and expanding out from the healthcare sector into general business finance solutions. Why did you decide to set up Samera, and what’s been the best part so far? I started Samera from my dad’s

In our latest CEO interview, we talk to Sam O’Connor, CEO of freelance accountancy companion Coconut. The Coconut accountancy app aims to make life easier for self-employed people and freelancers by using open banking to take the pressure off small business accounting and bookkeeping. Why did you decide to set up Coconut? My business partner, Adam

What do you think makes TorFX stand out above other currency brokers? At TorFX our most unique selling point is our staff. We employ a team of highly-experienced currency experts to provide our customers with an unrivaled level of support and insight. All of our customers are assigned a personal Account Manager to look after

In our latest CEO interview, we talk to Anna Sofat, founder of Addidi, a financial advisory and wealth management business for women. Anna Sofat, thank you very much for talking to the Good Money Guide today. We’re going to have a chat today about Addidi, why you set it up, what you do there and

Foreign exchange is a minefield. No one really knows what is going to happen to currency rates when markets are incredibly unpredictable.  Mis-timing a transaction can seriously leave you vulnerable if you aren’t prepared. So, if you have any upcoming large transaction how do you know what broker is going to offer you the best

One of the great things about doing these interviews is that you get to discover things you wouldn’t otherwise know about. When I spoke to June Felix, the new CEO of IG, the other day and asked what her top resources for traders were (outside IG of course) she highlighted Real Vision as something she

I have to admit that I wasn’t sure about the gamification of CFDs when BUX X first launched in 2014. I’ve always felt that CFD trading is a sophisticated product that caters to experienced investors. As much as every CFD broker would like it to be, leveraged trading is a niche market not appropriate for

A lot has changed in the world of ethical investing. When I first started out as a stockbroker for King & Shaxon, almost twenty years ago, ethical investing consisted of huddling around a Bloomberg terminal for morning conference calls, chirping in with potential investment opportunities may or may not fulfil ethical investment criteria. Caring about

There’s an old adage, that says you should invest in what you love, know and understand.  Which makes a lot of sense really, I doubt that most crypto traders have a clue what they are doing, so will most likely lose all their money. Most successful investors, look at established, profitable, transparent and well-known companies

I would say it’s a universal truth that there are two things you need to be a successful investor. Time and Money. I say you need money because this Instagram generation is in danger of thinking they can trade Forex for a living, when in actual fact they can’t. There is no way the constant

You may have noticed that the UK and London, in particular, has become a mecca for start-ups and growth companies disrupting industries through fintech. But what happens when you’ve done that and your business is ready for the next step? The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow… The public listing or trade

The thing about foreign exchange is that people don’t really understand it I’ve been involved in trading and deliverable FX for about twenty years and in all that time I’ve seen very few people that actually understand it, let alone explain it. I’ve seen many people claim to understand it, but even more people bury

Since the goalposts moved in Jan 2018 restricting leverage and new account incentives for retail traders, brokers have been trying harder to compete with the majors and stand out from the crowd. It’s difficult for brokers to compete on price, because spreads are about as tight as they can get. Brokers can’t even provide analysis

I’ve been having a long-standing debate as to whether or not price comparison works for money transfer services. It’s been a debate I’ve had in my own head, as well as with other providers, brokers, and webby techie people. A lot of industries are very price sensitive, so comparison works very well, but oddly enough

When we wrote a recent article on how to invest in gold. We covered precious metal stocks, Exchange Traded Funds, spread betting, and options. But sort of skipped over buying physical gold. Why? Well, traditionally, if you want to actually invest in physical gold you’ve had some fairly limited options. You can either buy gold

Currency hedging is a minefield really, some say you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. But, almost weekly there is an article in the financial press about a business that would have made money if it wasn’t for “adverse currency moves”. Currency hedging is all about protecting yourself or your business from

I’ve said it time and time again, that the most important thing when doing large currency conversions is trade execution. There is a lot of noise at the moment about discounted FX rates, peer2peer currency transfers, and banks being evil because they take a large mark up on foreign exchange transfers. But the truth is

I don’t go into The City as much as I’d like these days, but when I do I always find myself taking pictures of adverts on the tube. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s because, like the conductors jauntily abusing commuters on the platform for not “minding the gap”, adverts on the tube tend to

First, off why did you set up Crowdcube and what’s been your proudest moment since founding the company to date? I’d been running my own businesses and as an entrepreneur I realised first hand how difficult it is to secure investment. I’d had a great experience from angel investors but they’re in high demand, and

Way way back in 2013 I exchanged a few emails with Jeff Lynn the original CEO and founder of Seedrs about the prospect of a secondary exchange for crowdfunding investments. It was to be called “Seedaq” and be a market place for all the UK crowdfunding sites where investors could see an aggregated feed of

I remember being in touch with Bill Morrow the original founder of Angels Den many years ago when I was considering raising funds for one of my many failed ventures. What I liked about Angels Den back then was that in the Wild West days of equity crowdfunding, they had comparatively higher criteria for listing

Philip Adler, newly appointed CEO of ETX Capital tells us what his plans are for the CFD broker and why he views trader education as such a critical part of his strategy. There have been many changes in the spread betting and CFD industry over the past year or so. With the restriction of marketing

Life is pretty unfair really. All the (seemingly) best stuff is reserved for people with the most money. And finance is no different. If you’re taking out a massive mortgage for an eight-bed, detached mansion on a private estate you can borrow at interest rates that are lower than for an ex-local studio flat. When

One thing it seems some investors simply can’t get enough of is risk. And when it comes to investing in companies there is nothing quite as risky as investing in ones that are unlisted, illiquid, start-ups, that in some case have no revenue and no product. But, with great risk comes the potential for great

There seems to be a bit of a free-for-all in stockbroking at the moment. It looks like the fintech rebels have decided that investing is the next stomping ground for disruption. As fewer and fewer of the younger generation put aside money in savings and investments, a new breed of mobile first stockbroking platforms are

Nowadays trading seems to all be about not being part of the 20%. Enter Pelican, a new multi-asset, cross brokerage trading app that aims to fill the gap between execution-only and copy trading. As with all the other fintech companies disrupting the way people invest (cough cough Dabbl, FreeTrade, City Falcon) Pelican is currently raising

In the latest of our CEO interview series, we hear from Robert Lempka, CEO of social trading broker ayondo. Many years ago when I was at Investors Intelligence, I visited ayondo. They had just launched their social trading platform with the unique ability to set your own margin rates at 100% (thus mitigating leverage risk).

Fresh from winning best independent research house for fixed income (and equities and multi-asset finalist) in this year’s The Technical Analyst Awards. We catch up with Clive Lambert of Futurestechs on providing technical analysis for traders and brokers First off – what does Futurestechs do and who do you do it for? We write daily analysis on

Here we talk to Lisa Campbell, founder of the business behind the London Investor Show on how the brokerage industry can attract more active female traders and investors. Personally, I’ve attended the London Investor Show many times, both as a guest and as an exhibitor. We recently highlighted it as one of the key investor