With Paul Groves UK B2B CEO at Finalto

Paul, you have worked at Finalto for over 14 years. Please tell us a little about how your career at the firm has progressed and what your day to day responsibilities now involve? 

I joined CFH back in 2010 after many years working on trading desks. I wanted a change of direction and CFH wanted someone with market experience and a good network to help grow the business. The company was effectively a start-up when I joined but luckily the management in place were forward-thinking and structured so we soon had a stable and competitive offering in place. 

In 2019, I was given the role of Head of European Sales. This somewhat took me away from the usual day to day interaction with clients and focused me more of helping and guiding the Sales Team. After some internal changes I was offered the role of B2B CEO covering our Liquidity, Risk and Technology areas. 

Like all CEOs I am here to ensure we are regulatory compliant, have a solid dependable offering for our clients and ensure the future is mapped out for the B2B side of Finalto.

Formerly known as Tradetech Group, Finalto is a collection of B2B and B2C brands. What are these various entities and what was the reason behind the group’s rebranding initiative in 2020? 

Finalto is made up of CFH Clearing Ltd and Tradetech Alpha on the B2B side and Markets.com on the B2C side. 

After a number of acquisitions and name changes we recognised that there was a level of confusion about who we were and what we did, so a key reason to introduce the Finalto name was to simplify the situation CFH and Tradetech Alpha were both absorbed under the Finalto name, to create our institutional offering, while Markets.com retained its name in order to differentiate the retail brand.

What range of products and services does Finalto currently provide? 

Finalto offers a broad range of products, all via one pipe or GUI. This is an area we pride ourselves on and one we sometimes take for granted, as I understand this is not always the case within our peer group. We offer FX, Bullion, Energies, Indices, Equities, Softs, Base Metals and Cryptos. 

You cater to a wide spectrum of clients. Please tell us more about who these are. 

Historically, our client base has come from the Retail Broking market space and that area is still very important to us. As we have grown, we have seen our clients grow and I strongly believe we have maintained relationships for many years as we create connection that is genuinely mutually beneficial. As our price engines and technology has improved year on year, we have attracted and maintain a broad range of clients including Funds, Algo traders, Family Offices, HNW Individuals and Prop houses.

Who are the key members of your executive team and what roles are they each playing within the firm? 

In our London Office, we have Matthew Maloney, our Finalto Group CEO, Stanislav Bunimovich our Group COO and Andy Biggs our Global Head of Risk and Liquidity. 

My remit as B2B CEO covers our FCA licenses, while we have Alex Mackinnon based in our Singapore MAS regulated office as our CEO Asia. Between us, there is a lot of experience covering all aspects of the business and although the ultimate decisions come down to the local Directors we do have a great sounding board structure to discuss and analyse the business.  

What are the unique attributes that make Finalto different from many other brokers operating in this highly competitive market and what do people particularly like about its culture? 

Finalto was in no way an overnight success. The company has grown and matured over many years, and we are still constantly innovating to ensure we remain ahead of the curve. Although the group employs over three hundred people, I would like to think we still have the fresh, dynamic mentality of a start-up in the way we approach our day-to-day business. 

I think having our own proprietary tech stack has helped underline the fact we are not just a pure liquidity provider – there is much more depth to our offering. This in turn gives our staff more areas of opportunity to be creative and innovative. 

Please tell us about some of the recent highlights of the company’s growth and development. 

In 2023 we added two new data centres; one in New York and the other in Singapore. This has helped improve latency and indicates our commitment to be fully global. There has also been a lot of work done recently by our Tech and Liquidity teams in setting up local connections with our providers. This, combined with an investment in the Solace Hardware which dramatically increases our ability to consume price updates, underlines the fact we believe up-to-date technology combined with stable distribution channels is important to our business and our clients.

What work have you been doing to cement Finalto’s status as a truly global provider of liquidity and what benefits does bringing liquidity closer to clients deliver for them? 

As I mentioned above, the data centers have been an important move forward, but we are also mindful to interact with all the credible Hub and Bridge providers so we can reach as many clients as possible.

We have great relationships with all the leading companies in this field and our Client Services team have strong links with all these providers to ensure we are both on top of any issues should they occur. Naturally providing local liquidity will cut latency down for clients but it also sends out a message that we value investing locally to improve our price distribution.

Unlike some other firms, Finalto has a dedicated team of in-house experts working to craft bespoke integrations, execution and trade engines, real-time analytics, API connections and much more. Why have technology and data in liquidity pricing become such a key factor for success in this business and how do they help Finalto to differentiate itself from competitors?

Right from the start we had our own technology in some form. Initially just the one platform, but we soon expanded to cover all aspects of platforms, back office, rate engines, aggregation tools, margin engines, FIX API and more, whilst always being mindful our system has to be able to connect to other tech stacks that our clients choose. 

Although we interact successfully with all the main tech providers in this market we still have the ability to offer a full in-house built and maintained solution, and this allows us to create systems that let us provide flexibility and stability in uncertain markets. I strongly believe there are only a small group of companies that can do that.

The Asia-Pacific region is currently a hotspot for e-FX growth. How important is this part of the world for Finalto and how do you plan to create a more connected, efficient, and client-centric trading ecosystem across it? 

We now have our main Asian office in Singapore which is licensed by the MAS and run by Alex Mackinnon. In 2023 we set up our data center in SG1. We have recently added a One Zero connection from Tokyo TY3 going into our Singapore data center. On top of this we have the ASIC regulated office in Sydney run by Chris Cotterell. We understand the importance of the area to our future growth, so we have installed seasoned market professionals to run our offices and made significant infrastructure investments to ensure Finalto is the go-to provider.

Where else might we expect to see you focusing efforts to grow Finalto’s geographical footprint over the next few years? 

I think, like a lot of companies in our space, South America is grabbing our attention so we’re looking into that as an area for potential development. We have a regulated entity in South Africa where we have an ODP license, and we are beginning to put that to good use helping local brokers. We have a good network globally and are prepared when new areas become of interest. 

We have been reporting on a number of collaborative initiatives Finalto has recently been undertaking with other firms. Why are strategic partnerships so important for Finalto? 

Distribution of our goods and services through professional and like-minded companies has always been an important part of our business. Strategic partnerships on a local geographical level really gives us the best of both worlds in terms of local knowledge and understanding, as well as putting us in front of the right people.

What work are the Finalto team currently doing to explore and develop new products and services to cater for the evolving needs of your clients? 

Without giving too much away we are always looking for ways to make improvements in our tech and infrastructure. These – often small – changes are carried out to benefit the client and Finalto but may not always be that obvious to all. We’re also always investing in updating our client-facing initiatives which are designed to improve clients’ ability to be more successful in business. For example, we have spent a lot of time and effort recently looking at ways to improve the day-to-day risk management of B book brokers and now can provide a tool which sits between the STP and B book world. Watch this space.

Plans to globalise services have been a consistent cornerstone of Finalto’s development strategy so far. Can we expect more of the same this year and what are going to be your priorities as you and your team work to grow the business further and maintain its market leading position? 

We want our offering and products to be as consistent as possible no matter which Finalto office you open with or Data center you are being priced from. This sounds an obvious statement but it’s one that takes a lot of co-ordination and work from our staff and providers to achieve.

It’s been said that innovation isn’t just a buzzword at Finalto, it’s a way of life. For a company that has always taken a forward-thinking approach to try and deliver unmatched value to your clients what do you see as the biggest opportunities for Finalto over the next few years? 

We have a solid base and infrastructure. Although initially our product was focused on retail brokers – who remain and will always be a very important part of our business – our offering is flexible and is relevant for a broad range of Financial Institutions. As it’s our own proprietary tech, we can make changes relatively easy to accommodate new genres of clients should the business opportunity present itself. 

If we combine this with a Global outlook and the ability to move swiftly into newly opened areas, I would say our biggest opportunity will be our ability to maintain and grow our existing client base combined with attracting clients from geographical and business types we could only have hoped to work with years ago.