LeapRate Exclusive…Tom Higgins, CEO, Founder and the driving force behind Gold-i. His experience in the financial technology sector spans over 28 years.
Tom shares his market insight with us and his company’s plans for global expansion and growth plans across multiple regions.
LR: Last time you were LeapRate’s guests was in 2019, what has changed in Gold-i since then?
Tom: So much has happened since then! We have greatly increased the diversity of our revenue streams, including revenue generation from both Crypto and data products and have completely evolved from a bridge provider into a market-leading liquidity management technology specialist. In fact, we have just had our best year to date, with client acquisition at an all-time high.
With the surge of interest in digital assets, there has been significant interest in our Crypto Switch 2.0™. We have now integrated 12 institutional-grade Market Makers and a number of clients.
Our real-time risk management and business intelligence tool, Visual Edge, has been installed with multiple global customers and Matrix, our liquidity management platform, has become our flagship product. It’s outselling all of our other products, largely because brokers worldwide are now realising the need for higher quality technology and multiple liquidity streams in order to cater to their varying client needs.
LR: The last two years were turbulent, to say the least. What trends have you noticed in the retail forex industry? What changes in the industry do you think we can expect in the near future?
Tom: One of the biggest trends has been the consolidation of brokers into several more significant players. We’ve also seen an increasing requirement for index trading. In addition, demand for institutional Crypto products has been enormous, far outpacing retail trading Crypto demands.
One change we have certainly been seeing – which has been good for our business – is that brokers are increasingly reviewing how much they are paying for their technology services. We have seen many new business opportunities come in as a result of brokers looking for more cost-effective solutions. In the past, larger brokers tended not to want to switch providers because of the complexity of the integrations already installed. However, this no longer seems to be such an issue, and we are experiencing more and more movement from this larger end of the market as cost-efficiencies are such a major priority.
LR: How has liquidity management evolved in the last couple of years?
Tom: Multiple asset classes can be easily managed through a single platform, making it far more straightforward than ever before for brokers to diversify. As a result, there’s been a big rise in the number of brokers looking at diversifying and adding new asset classes over the last couple of years.
The biggest change has been the introduction of alternative asset classes on top of standard Spot FX. One of the most interesting asset classes we are involved with is from AllStars Trader, which allows people to invest in indices based on celebrities, sports stars and entrepreneurs. It’s an entirely new asset class and adds a fascinating new dimension to trading.
LR: How has the pandemic affected your business?
Tom: The biggest challenge during the pandemic has been uncertainty. Therefore, making strategic plans, even for 12 months ahead, has been very difficult.
However, we adapted well to remote working, increased focus on digital marketing, and ensured that internal communications remained strong to maintain our company culture and motivate the team. Whilst we couldn’t meet clients and prospects face-to-face, customer service levels remained very high. We had regular calls and virtual meetings with clients to build on the strong relationships which had already been created prior to the pandemic.
LR: What can we expect from Gold-i in the near future?
Tom: We are focusing on significant global expansion and have ambitious growth plans across multiple regions.
We continually invest in all of our products and are always keen to incorporate client feedback as part of our development process. Our next major launch will be the next generation of our Matrix product, which will encompass margining and more institutional grade functionality. We are also planning to increase our focus on Crypto liquidity management.
As we continue to grow, our core values – Innovate, Get It Done and Have Fun – will remain the same. It’s very important to us that we retain our focus on delivering a fantastic customer experience to all of our clients.
