Game Changers issue 16

ISSUE #16

HOW TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD Interview with Tom Higgins, CEO of Gold-i.

GAME CHANGERS

DIRECTORY O1

Note from the editor

O2

George Larkou

O3

Tom Higgins

O4

Thomas Papapolyzos, Stathis Xenos & Stelios Choumas

View from the top 03

Impactech 04-07

Gold-i 08-10

a-quant 11-12

O5

Mario Singh

O6

Tom Higgins

O7

Marc Spender

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Paul Orford

Fullerton Markets. 13-14

Gold-i 10th Anniversary 15

The Squaddie of Wall Street 16-17

Lisbon Affiliate Expo 18-19

VIEW FROM THE TOP This month sees the start of the final charge towards the end of the year, and the booking of the all-important Christmas party. With the summer on really stopping in this part of the world over the past couple of weeks, it is crazy to think how fast this year has gone.

This month’s cover star is the globally renowned Tom Higgins, the mastermind behind Gold-i. For the incredibly small amount of people who are not aware of who Tom is or his opus of work. He has operated at the vanguard of electronic trading for many decades, and has given us some of the most innovative software in his Gold-I technology.

We are really pleased to have Gold-I feature again, after they were one of the first to see our vision in displaying the personalities of the industry, rather than the product.

This issue has many new entrants this month, leading the way is Impactech, who are making a tremendous amount of positive noise, with their pioneering CRM solution that also has VOIP integrated into their CRM. Take a look at what they have to offer that makes them so different.

It is always great to have local brands feature in Game Changers, and this month we have service provider a-quant make their first appearance.

They offer state of the art trading signals, dynamic portfolio optimization and custom solutions for the clients. It was really interesting to see how the can revolutionise your service.

My good friend, international marketing genius, and one of the sounding boards of Game Changers Stelios Constantinou gave us a pictorial outline of the Lisbon affiliate summit. With his sharp eye for detail, looking at the portfolio of shots he brought back was time never wasted.

Last but definitely not least we had a great time speaking with Marc Spender, aka ‘The Squaddie of Wall Street’. It was interesting to see how he made

BECOME A GAMECHANGER. Let the world hear your story.

his transition from the armed forces to the trading environment. Moreover, if you get a chance have a look at the interesting way he is giving his ex-forces colleagues a leg up, it is a very novel way of helping them start a new life.; As ever thanks to everyone who made this month’s edition possible. We do have a lot of exciting changes coming in the next few months so stay tuned.

Thanks for all the support and as ever, let’s change the game…together!

Paul ORFORD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF P-3

GEORGIOS LARKOU

One dashboard delivers the big picture: All the information your team needs on a single interface to deliver the best customer experience.

Co-founder and CEO of Impact Tech LTD

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Understand what makes customers happy using Sentiment Analysis

”

ImpacTech provides Sentiment Analysis using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning algorithms to offer businesses game-changing insights into customer feelings and the ability to fine tune how sales and retention teams work to their maximum potential.

Every business knows the importance of happy customers. They boost the bottom line and improve retention. Then there’s the priceless benefit of word-ofmouth marketing that happy customers provide.

The impact of unhappy customers reverses all of the above.

Price and the quality of a service or product are always important. However, according to Walker Consulting, customer experience will be the key differentiator for success through the sales funnel going forward.

The 2018 digital trends report reveals how much businesses are focussing on customer experience, citing it as the most exciting business opportunity.

Apple have achieved 90% customer

GAME CHANGERS Issue #16

loyalty by providing a first class customer experience for its entire product range.

Apple’s products are good but there are plenty of cheaper alternatives that perform equally well if not better. The key to Apple’s success is the personalised experience their customers receive.

Creating a high-quality system that everybody follows is one component of customer satisfaction. However, understanding what makes customers happy requires a process to accurately gauge and quantify how they feel.

Businesses can assign as many agents as they can afford to keep their clients happy. But it’s far from a fool-proof method of achieving efficient and effective client satisfaction. Not all agents perform as well as others. There are times when a client needs attention

when the usual agent isn’t available.

Even the best agents have an off day or miss something that results in a less than happy customer.

If your business attracts clients from all over the world, you will employ staff that can communicate effectively with them.

Th an.

HAPPY CUSTOMERS ARE LOYAL CUSTOMERS As the drive to improve customer service increases having greater certainty and understanding about the mood and needs of clients is essential. Impact CRM is a scalable platform that gauges how a client or lead feels using Sentiment Analysis. It will also automatically direct enquiries and leads to team members who are appropriately skilled to deal

with a request based on region, language and request type.

By developing AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) with Sentiment Analysis, ImpacTech’s platforms offer actionable insights about how clients feel. By filtering all communication channels through Sentiment Analysis, it is possible to improve customer satisfaction and create deeper client relationships.

Additionally, automation of the process not only removes a costly layer of manual administration it also minimises the time needed for requests and leads to be dealt with by the most appropriate people within the team.

Communication insights provide the understanding about what a client needs to hear to be happy and stay loyal. Impact CRM identifies the keywords that are the most effective most often. Crucially, Sentiment Analysis can also reveal what keywords make a client unhappy giving valuable insights to retention teams.

Businesses risk losing out on as much as 22% of potential customers following one negative post. This increases to 59% if three negative postings are seen in a search.

Analysing Social Media, chat, email and other online activity creates further insights to better understand a client.

Impact CRM accommodates all these channels and delivers easy-to-use insights.

In the forex industry, meeting compliance regulations is a hurdle that regulated

brokers face. Impact CRM flags calls that risk infringing regulations using a percentage ranking. This can save brokerages costly fines for repeating infringements and saves the compliance team time by pinpointing the calls that need attention.

LIFT PERFORMANCE THROUGHOUT YOUR ENTIRE BUSINESS The same information can help to train members of the sales team about what is permissible to say. By flagging up words and phrases with potential compliance issues managers can focus on the training needs of individual team members.

Impact CRM also accommodates Continual Learning by allowing words to be tagged manually in relation to compliance. This enables the platform to be customised to the terminology used by the industry and where a particular business operates.

Training is also super-charged with powerful insights about what works and what doesn’t in sales. This can help to lift the overall performance of teams and bring new members up to speed more efficiently.

After defining which keywords work best, a business can home in on which territories respond better to specific keywords. As more data is analysed a business will know the optimum talk/listen ratio for achieving the best results not only by territory but also by demographics like gender, age, education, profession, occupation and

income level.

Over time the Machine Learning algorithm will be able to predict which member of your team is best suited to convert a sale based on the previous conversions of leads with similar demographics.

These insights also bring greater efficiencies to marketing campaigns and generate greater return on advertising spend.

Every area of operations can benefit from the insights by bringing together the data collected through every touchpoint.

Fractured customer engagement systems have been one of the biggest hurdles established businesses have faced in their effort to raise customer satisfaction levels. Impact CRM makes unifying customer touchpoints possible through its unparalleled API architecture.

It creates a seamless connection between the business and customers where every communication is collected, visible on a single interface and accessible by all departments.

The ability to meet and exceed customer expectations is possible using Impact CRM. The never-ending battle to deliver the best customer service means it’s imperative for a business to invest in a platform that can deliver immediately and is built with the future in mind.

Protect your brand: Every regulated business face fines and reputationaldamage for non-compliance, this can be avoided by using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning algorithms to efficiently reveal potential compliance issues.

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As the drive to greater customer service increases having greater certainty and understanding about the mood and needs of clients is essential. Impact CRM is a scalable platform that gauges how a client or lead feels using Sentiment Analysis.

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George Larkou Impact Tech LTD, CEO

GAME CHANGERS Issue #16

Anthony Papaevagorou Impact Tech LTD, Sales Director

TOM HIGGINS Founder and CEO of Gold-i

Q

It’s fair to say that you are a huge name both personally and with your massively successful brand. What do you attribute the success to?

In 2008 I spotted a gap in the market for advanced routing technology combined with deep business expertise in the retail FX trading space. Having scoured the market, I realised there were no specialist vendors offering the right products at the right price in the right places - and so Gold-i was born. We have been a pioneer from the outset, continually pushing boundaries to help to improve the capabilities and opportunities for retail brokers worldwide.

Our focus has always been on working in partnership with clients to help them to make more money, differentiate from competitors and manage their risk more effectively.

Building the right team and having a continuously innovative approach to developing products are undoubtedly key factors which have contributed to our success to date. We have always invested in having the best staff and we take our responsibility as an employer very seriously, ensuring we look after our staff properly. We have also always spent a large proportion of our income on R&D and have always developed products ahead of client needs.

On a personal level, I am motivated by driving the market forward and I am also known for ‘wearing the loud shirt.’

This has become one of Gold-i’s key values, helping us to stand out. We’re not afraid to be different - it helps us to maintain our focus on innovation.

In fact, our values are embedded in the company and drive what we do and how we operate. They have given us a real sense of identity. In addition to ‘wear the loud shirt’, they are ‘action against the odds’ – be determined to make it

GAME CHANGERS Issue #12

Tom Higgins.

Founder and CEO of Gold-i.

work; and ‘embrace the fun.’ A fun, positive atmosphere in the office results in employees being far more motivated to succeed.

Q

Congratulations on the 10 year anniversary. What made you take the step from being the CTO at ODL Securities to creating your own empire?

I knew there was a better way that technology solutions could be provided in this sector. It is a daunting prospect going from corporate employee at a senior level to running your own business but as anyone who has ever done it knows, once you’ve made this leap you never want to go back!

Q Gold-i is now a mature brand. Have you had to change your management style from leading a start-up team to being the head of a large organisation?

I think my management style has always been one of my strengths and something that I’ve never wanted to change.

What I do on a day-to-day basis has changed significantly but my management style has remained the same. I have always believed in delegating and being completely fair and honest with all members of staff. I also think it’s important that our employees enjoy being at work and feel valued and part of the team. Gold-i is a fun place to work and I am determined to keep this ethos as we continue to grow.

Q

Gold-i has evolved from being a bridge provider to having a wider portfolio of products. What is your current product focus?

Multi-asset liquidity management is a huge focus for Goldi, and we have invested heavily in our innovative Matrix platform as well as our Crypto Switch™, which enables clients to offer access to this latest asset class.

Our Visual Edge risk management and business insight software is another key focus. It enables brokers to slice and dice trade data in many ways in order to have an in-depth understanding about the key metrics which drive their trading operations. They can manage their exposure in real-time, reduce potential losses and easily identify growth opportunities.

Our MetaTrader plug-ins, including our award-winning MT4 Bridge, MT5 Gateway and MAM Pro for MT4/MT5, remain core products for the business and we continue to invest in new features.

Our fourth area of focus is advanced flow management we recently launched Matrix Net, which provides a strong liquidity distribution channel for Liquidity Providers and Prime of Prime brokers, enabling them to leverage our extensive global network and reach clients who use Gold-i’s Matrix, MT4 Bridge and MT5 Gateway products.

Q Will the uncertainty of Brexit change the model of how Gold-i operates?

Strangely enough Brexit doesn’t really change how we function.

We have always been a multinational company and EU borders don’t affect that. Our business plan remains the same, we aim to cover the whole of the world with strategic offices. However, Brexit will affect many of our clients and we need to be aware of their circumstances.

Q There is huge competition in your field now. What separates Gold-i from the rest of the pack?

Gold-i has always sought to be a thought leader in our market and any up-and-coming markets that are relevant to our clients.

We invest heavily in employing the right staff and in employee development. Engaged staff are the key to high quality products and highly satisfied clients, and we constantly score very highly in our staff engagement surveys.

Our technology stays ahead of the game and is faster and more reliable than any other that products that we know. These factors have allowed the development of our outstanding Matrix platform, which is core to the future of the company. It operates across all asset classes including FX, CFDs, cryptocurrencies and others in the future.

For further information about Gold-i or to request product demos, please visit www.gold-i.com

Tom Higgins with the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey and the Mayor of Guildford.

Tom Higgins meets HRH Queen Elizabeth II.

Left to right: Chris James (Chief Technology Officer), Tom Higgins (CEO and Founder of Gold-i) and Julian Elliot (Chief Commercial Officer.)

STATHIS XENOS

CMO, Chief Marketing officer of a-quant.

Q Stathi, can you outline your experience in FX? I am a versatile and results-oriented young professional with a strong business acumen aspiring to succeed in the business world and to secure a position in the financial and Fintech industry.

After the end of my civil engineering studies which helped me think in a more practical way I began working in a Greek Brokerage. At the same time I started my MBA studies, specializing in finance, as a part time program.

My first role in the brokerage world was both challenging and difficult. Due to the fact that the broker was a new entry in the financial market we had to deal with a lot of difficulties.

I managed to handle them successfully and I gained experience in many hot issues that a broker faces: Legal issues, operation activities, compliance and sales were some of them. After a short period, I gained a managerial position which gave me the opportunity to manage a large team of people. My role was to recruit, manage and develop a team to a professional level in order to achieve the most successful business development. Data analysis, statistical modelling and sales revenue plans were the major tools that I used for managing my team successfully. The results were quite significant and we managed to be established as one of the leaders in the local market.

My passion for the Fintech industry and the vision of the founder of a-Quant led me to enter the Fintech world. Now

I am the CMO of this company. Sorry that I don’t prefer to speak about us as a company, but as a group of professionals who are making the difference at a global level.

Q Why is it different from other similar services?

Most of the Fintech companies rely on technical analysis and fundamentals in order to inform their clients and build profitable strategies. We have a vast experience in those areas having worked for big investment companies, brokers and individual traders (retail and High Networth Individuals).

Additionally, we have experience in Machine Learning, AI, mathematics, statistics and software development. All these skills combined produce an outstanding result that has established a-Quant as a market leader in the Fintech industry with clients and offices in Nicosia, Athens, London and NY.

STELIOS CHOUMAS

COO, Chief Operations Officer of a-quant.

Q You have a huge background in programming. What started your passion for this?

I had a huge passion for mathematics when I was in high school. During those years software and programming was quite different than today. I still remember my first personal computer which was an Amstrad CPC6128. I had to write source code with ordered lines and I had to type “run” to execute my program. I strongly believed that programming, even those “ancient” days, was not something for nerds or typical programmers of the 80s but rather it was a role for

Left to right: Stathis Xenos (CMO), Thomas Papapolyzos (CEO) and Stelios Choumas (CMO).

efficient. These tools save you effort and time by providing in a compact form all the necessary information that would require many charts and indicators. As a trader, you can also use our proprietary signal service which is based on ML and AI algorithms and performs greatly.

As an institutional client you can cooperate with us by using our portfolio optimization algorithms that can be applied in a series of selected ETFs. If you are a broker and you are not into the ‘churn and burn’ logic you can offer to your clients the a-Quant Fintech solutions: trading signals, markets analysis and educational courses.

THOMAS PAPAPOLYZOS

CEO and Founder of a-quant.

Left to right: Stathis Xenos (CMO), Stelios Choumas ( COO) and Thomas Papapolyzos (CEO).

engineers. That’s why I continued my studies by getting electrical and computer engineering degrees. During my studies I understood what it means to be an engineer: I had to learn not only to find solutions to problems but the optimum solutions. I also learnt that mistakes are forbidden for engineers. I still remember my professor’s words “nobody is going to care if you know the methodology how to build a bridge but unfortunately you made a mistake in calculations and the bridge destroyed!”. My studies in postgraduate level included Chaos Theory and Neural Networks.

Later on, as a professional I was never afraid of responsibility or mission impossible. That is why very early I took the roles of team leader and IT director. After a few years, as a freelancer, I had the chance to participate in many international big projects with multiple roles: System Architect, Senior Developer, Project Manager and Quant.

Projects were mainly involving finance, banking, algos, statistics and mathematics.

The key period for me, was when I met the fantastic world of trading about 11 years ago. I had all in one: mathematics, charts, statistics, technical indicators & oscillators and machine learning/artificial intelligence. I offered my services, mainly as a Programmer and Quant for individual traders, brokers and investment companies.

A-quant was a big challenge for me because along with the founder and our team, we had to capitalize all of our knowledge and experience in order to design and develop high quality products for traders and investment companies. It took a lot of hard work, endless brainstorming, many thousand lines of source code and many tests but finally we released high quality products. The best proof for our quality is the trust and the devotion of our clients (individual traders or trading companies & organizations).

Q How easy is this for me to use?

If you are a trader you can benefit from a-Quant’s trading tools which make your trading life easier, simpler and more

GAME CHANGERS Issue #16

Q You are a very well-known entrepreneur from the early days of the internet. What do you think makes an online company successful?

On the long run no matter what kind of business you are running, online or offline, the product / service itself & the quality of your customer service define your success. If your product overdelivers on its promises & provides real value to the customer with a superb care for him/her, everything else can be figured out.

Short term the challenges for a new online business are many more than they used to be in the late 90s. Now everybody is online, knows how to apply SEO & other growth hacking marketing techniques & the competition for online customers is fierce. The online thing has matured and requires a great amount of effort & remarkable originality to attract first time users to your service.

Consistency, perseverance & intense focus on the basics of your product will define your success. And as always you need some luck as well!

Q Why did you start A-Quant?

There are some trends clearly out there in the trading & investment business. The main trend is the increasing use of sophisticated algos & tools for traders & investors, which until recently was a privilege of large hedge funds & proprietary desks. The last years we have more computing power for the average individual trader, so machine learning algos can take advantage of this and we have big & clean data available, on which we can build our models, train & optimize them. All these beautiful tools have been made available by companies like a-quant, at very reasonable costs to the average trader & make him capable to compete against much larger market participants.

Being a trader for more than 25 years & having developed machine learning solutions & predictive models for big institutions in various fields, I can say that, this is a great new era for individual investors & traders. There is still great room for better data, algos & tools but the market is changing rapidly everyday so all the participants must stay tuned 24/7, If they want to survive.

FULLERTON FOUNDATION

MARIO SINGH CEO of Fullerton Markets

Fullerton Markets, in a span of just 2 years, was able to establish itself as the fastest growing brokerage firm in Asia. While the company aims to make everyone achieve financial freedom, the well-respected brokerage firm also has a heart for the less fortunate ones.

Fullerton Foundation is the charity arm of Fullerton Markets. Headed by Mario Singh, CEO of Fullerton Markets, the company partnered with different communities to educate the kids, share the blessings to the less fortunate ones and inspire them to keep reaching for their dreams. Fullerton Markets team believes that children are the future pillars of society and that all their dreams can come true if someone will constantly remind them not to give up.

Exciting activities are prepared for orphanages and halfway houses all over Asia. The most recent one was in Teratak Nur Barakah in Shah Alam, Malaysia held on 6th October 2018. This orphanage, aside from serving as a shelter, also provides education to around 25 boys and girls it serves. Fullerton Markets donated food items and household necessities for their daily needs.

We are looking forward to helping more kids and be an inspiration for them to keep moving until they fulfill all their dreams and whatever their hearts desire. More charitable activities will be executed early next year.

For those who want to be part of Fullerton Foundation in shaping the dreams and changing the lives of the less fortunate kids, kindly go to our live chat support who will assist you 24/7: www.secure.fullertonmarkets.com/chat/phplive.php Together let’s change lives!

Gold-i Celebrates 10th Anniversary!

Gold-i is celebrating its tenth anniversary, a major milestone for the successful UK-based trading technology firm.

Over the last ten years, Gold-i has transitioned from a successful MT4 Bridge company to a world-renowned FinTech organisation, with a broad portfolio which includes an innovative liquidity management platform as well as risk management software, business intelligence tools and MT4/MT5 plug-ins. Most recently, Gold-i launched Matrix Net, which enables Liquidity Providers and Prime of Prime brokers to offer their liquidity to Gold-i’s large global client network.

Tom Higgins, CEO, Gold-i comments, “I set up Gold-i ten years ago to address a gap in the market as at that time there weren’t any dedicated technology providers focusing on the retail FX market. The industry has changed considerably over the last decade and Gold-i has evolved accordingly, continually developing new products to help brokers to become more profitable and manage their risk more effectively. Most notably, we now not only focus on FX but have products which help brokers to operate across a range of asset classes.

“I am very proud of our contribution to the industry and our achievements as an organisation. We have ambitious plans moving forward and will to continue to push boundaries within our core market and further afield.”

Photograph reproduced with kind permission of Andrew Saks-McLeod www.financefeeds.com

The Squaddie of Wall Street MARC SPENDER Founder and CEO of The Squaddie of Wall Street.

Q Hello Marc, thanks for taking the time to speak to us. I think you are think you are the first service person to appear in Game Changers Magazine. Can you tell us your story about joining the services? What roles did you fill?

I joined the Royal Artillery in december of 1998 after spending a year and a half on a YTS scheme selling televisions at Granada TV Rentals. I joined on a whim without putting any real thought into it and although i found the adjustment hard

i found the mix of people from around the UK the most enjoyable part, and looked forward to a life of travel. Born in East London and having never been on a plane i put my 3 posting choices all as Germany and looked forward to absorbing the culture and the alcohol available due to their policy of 24 hour a day pub opening times, however it was not to be and i was posted 20 minutes away from my home address to Woolwich Barracks, South London. Bugger. I spent from 1999 to 2007 in a Rapier Surface to air missile detachment and completed operation tours of Cyprus with the UN, Iraq with 40 regt RA and transferred to the Armies only drone regiment at the time in 2007, i left in 2013 after 2 tours of Afghanistan as a Hermes 450 pilot.

Q It is quite a transition from forces life to learning about the financial markets. How did you discover them?

Totally by accident, on one of my many low paid jobs a friend approached me on facebook asking if i wanted to earn a few quid by referring people to a Forex Broker, i started reffering yet quickly found i was being asked alot of questions that i could not answer so started learning about forex and the inner workings and quickly found it fascinating.

Q Did you background help you learn electronic trading?

Not so much my background however skills picked up in the army are definately transferable to trading on the financial

GAME CHANGERS Issue #16

markets, not only self discipline and decision making under pressure but also years spent picking up fag butts in the rain and sweeping up falling leaves has instilled a level of patience unknown to most civilians.

Q You have quite a substantial following on social media. Is it just military based personnel that follow you?

Mostly yes, and their friends and family. my goal at the beginning was to build a strong community with the same values as myself and help guide them on can be a path filled with dodgy characters and pop up brokerages just intent on taking peoples money.

I have surrounded myself with people i trust and we are all doing very well so far.

Q Do you think that some of the skills you picked up in the forces help you to trade in your decision making process?

Absolutely, decisions made on the finincial markets are by no means life or death however clear thinking when markets are moving quickly and the patience to wait for the right opportunity were definately picked up in the forces and help me today

Q I took a look at the Venator Trading and Brokerage website, and saw that you are operating ‘Troops for trading initiative.’ Can you tell us more about this?

I have done alot of work with homeless veterans, having very nearly becoming homeless myself a short while after i left the services the matter is something close to my heart, the troops to trading initiative is a project where i want to take 6 people in need of a fresh start, teach them to trade and have them manage a hedge fund made up of donations from the public. The idea is still in its infant stages however i am hoping to get this off the ground middle of next year. more information can be found on our website at www.venatortradingandbrokerageltd.com

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LISBON AFFILIATE EXPO We were lucky enough to attend the IGB Affiliate conference in the new venue of Lisbon.

This is the first time that we have attended the event, as we were curious to know if there was any way that the institutional market could find a use for.

We would love to hear your feedback to see if this is a space for institutional, or if this is just something for the retail space.

You can see Game Changers resident photographer and Video Director Stelios Constaninou pictures on his journey around the auditorium.

GAME CHANGERS Issue #16

ISSUE #16

THE JOURNAL FOR INDUSTRY LEADERS

http://gchangersmag.com info@gchangersmag.com

GAME CHANGERS Issue #16