Transcript
David Barrett, CEO of EBC Financial Group (UK), discusses the group’s astounding international growth and latest regions of activity; the different clients that EBC is serving and how it meets their many and diverse needs; and why whatever the future holds for the group, serving the community will be at the heart of it.
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World Finance: David, catch us up on the latest news for EBC Financial Group – how has your growth across the world been going?
David Barrett: Very good! I’m always astounded – we started five years ago, there’s nearly 500 people globally now. That’s across all different aspects of the business, so growth of the business is very good, and clearly that’s driven by customer growth as well.
We’ve spent a lot of time in the last 12 months in newer regions: South Africa, and in the African nations as well. There’s a lot of activity going on in LatAm, where there’s been a lot of interest in the product.
We’ve set up an asset management company in Australia, which has been regulated by the Australian regulator. We’ve set up a brokerage in Mauritius which is regulated by the local authority there as well.
And I think all of these things are about building out the scope and the breadth of the platform. So, EBC Financial Group is a family of different firms. Different firms do different things for different people in different ways. And the different jurisdictions allow different kinds of access and different rules. And we’re very keen to continue to grow our regulatory footprint so that the client feels that it’s a good environment and a safe environment for them to be in.
World Finance: Tell me about the different clients that you’re working with in these different jurisdictions – do they require different support, or a different offering?
David Barrett: Yeah absolutely, very much so.
So if I take the UK, we don’t deal with retail in the UK, we deal with what we call professional clients and eligible clients, which tend to be larger and more sophisticated but fewer.
Those kind of people, you have a completely different relationship to them, as you would do with a retail trader from Asia or from Latin America.
I think the most vulnerable end is the younger retail people. Client services is very important. Being in contact, having the ability to help when they reach out is very important. And I think also you need the education. It’s very important. So we’re doing a lot more in terms of market briefs, interpreting different market events, economic events as well as political events.
And the idea is to try and encompass an information flow that allows them to understand that it didn’t go from here to here just because it went. There was stuff going on, and it does influence how markets move. And I think it’s our obligation – we want these people to be our clients, we’ve got to look after them.
Best clients are clients that stay. Best clients that stay are clients that make money, so it’s important for us to help them.
World Finance: So what is next for EBC Financial Group?
David Barrett: I think we continue to do the growth that we’ve seen. We want to be more established in the newer regions. We want to develop those out.
It’s pretty clear the ethos of the group – this is led from the UBO down, he’s very keen on the community aspect of what we do. We do try very hard to be interactive with the local communities. We have offices all over the place, and the local staff are very keen to be involved in local community projects.
I spoke to you before about what we do with the UN, with Beat Malaria. The political change in the US administration has made that more difficult, and it requires our support to keep going.
And in terms of the business, it’s about growing a business that’s sustainable for us, but is relevant to the client as well.