LeapRate Exclusive… Following our exclusive report from earlier this month that Jamieson Blake, Head of Client Experience at the FCA regulated London based arm of ADS Securities, had resigned from the company, LeapRate has now learned that Mr. Blake has landed – at specialty lending and retail investment firm Basset and Gold, as Head of Relationship Management.
Dina Benzaquen
While operating in a different vertical, FCA licensed Basset and Gold also has its roots in the Retail FX sector. Basset and Gold is controlled by UK-Israeli attorney and businesswoman Dina Benzaquen. Ms. Benzaquen is formerly the in house senior counsel for TradeFXL, which at the time was the financial arm of Teddy Sagi’s online gaming giant Playtech PLC (LON:PTEC), which operates the Markets.com Retail FX brokerage. She had also served as as Associate Lawyer and Investigator at the FCA.
Basset and Gold is a collection of innovative people from a diverse background base looking to disrupt the stagnant finance industry. The company was set up by finance industry experts from hedge fund, private debt, financial regulation, corporate banking and FX backgrounds. Its mission is to create investment opportunities that are easy to understand, transparent and that continuously control risk while maintaining market-leading returns.
Basset and Gold provides financing to marketplace and peer-to-peer lending platforms and direct loans. It provides an asset class that has previously been monopolized by hedge funds and large banks.
The company finances its loan business by issuing fixed income asset backed bonds to retail investors (UK only at this stage).
Jamieson Blake told LeapRate of his move to Basset and Gold:
I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such an exciting team as those at Basset & Gold. Already, they have rattled an industry that has lacked creativity and their ‘client first’ approach at business has reaped dividends. My deep knowledge of client psychology and both the retail and institutional investor space will allow me to add value to the proposition and I’m ecstatic to be joining the success story.