Carla Nemr speaks to FinanceFeeds on her management position at Tickmill, post Vipro acquisition

Structuring a retail FX brokerage with a global client base in mind is no ordinary task in today’s highly competitive marketplace.

This year, for many retail contenders, the way forward in terms of maintaining existing client bases in important regions as well as gaining advantageous headway in new strategic territories that are now rapidly becoming areas of focus for retail brokerages such as the Middle East and South East Asia, is through a combination of organic growth as well as via acquisition.

As defined yesterday in FinanceFeeds’ predictions for 2018, evidence of more established retail companies which do not have their origins in the elevated heartlands of London, Sydney, New York or Chicago facing a crossroads is beginning to appear.

Quite simply, the establishment is on a stable route to further growth and British, Australian and American giants have become household names, with commercial strength and global reputations akin to cast iron.

In Cyprus, however, the dichotomy between those with global aspirations and those which are likely not to sustain the implementation of MiFID II is growing with increasing speed, and thus the companies with real intention to be a genuine part of the electronic trading topography of the world are expanding their presence into Western regions for expertise, respected regulatory stature and infrastructure, prime brokerage and liquidity partnerships, and into global regions for growth via expansion and acquisition.

Tickmill is a case in point. The company has grown rapidly from its original stature as a small, Cyprus-based company, however its expansion program has demonstrated that it intends to sustain its place, marked by last year’s appointment of Duncan Anderson as CEO in London.

began his career among prestigious British executing venues, those being LIFFE, the London Metal Exchange and the International Petroleum Exchange in the city of London. Mr Anderson recalls his inaugural years in which transactions were conducted in trading pits on an open outcry basis.

Following his initial career in London, Mr Anderson spent two years at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where the transition from voice to electronic trading was made, as he began to interact with traders who were starting to build algorithmic trading systems, something that has developed exponentially over the last twenty years and is of significant interest to him.

On his return to London, Mr Anderson worked for one of the largest forex and CFD brokerage firms as a dealer and risk manager and has since set up various operations for companies in this sector, culminating in setting up the London office for Tickmill.

It is clear that smaller Cyprus based brokerages, as many as 80 of them in our opinion, will not sustain their Europe-based operations during the course of the coming year, which will create a different environment in Cyprus, whereby those who do it right will stay, and those who do not will fall foul of the expectations of MiFID II. This will likely affect companies with head offices outside the Western world, and which onboard clients to non-EU entities whilst proclaiming CySec, and therefore MiFID II compliance, yet having no substance.

For companies in Cyprus that have furthered their operations correctly and done so with the right executives and expertise on board, the world will become more open in terms of marketing and reach from Cyprus.

Tickmill’s move onwards has followed this line of thinking, the company having hired Carla Nemr in March this year

Ms Nemr is a widely renowned industry executive within Cyprus’ retail FX sector, having begun her career at Alpari in January 2012 as Regional Sales Representative for retail and institutional products, before moving to FXTM in January 2013.

Following her tenure at FXTM, Ms Nemr assumed the position of Regional Sales Manager at Amana Capital, a UAE- focused company with a large client base in the DMCC and Gulf area.

In March, she joined Tickmill, as Global Head of Business Development.

Today, Ms Nemr discussed this with FinanceFeeds, as her transition from Middle East-focused Amana Capital to a lead the sales effort for a firm with international aspirations came at a time during which Tickmill was engaged in global growth and acquisitions.

Ms Nemr explained “I have spent the past nine months concentrating on a holistic approach to the provision of FX, involving retail markets worldwide, as well as partnerships and institutional business, including substantial international travel in order to meet our partners on the ground and build the trust and our strong presence globally.”

“Since the acquisition of Vipro Markets by Tickmill, I have also been managing the sales and partner relationship operations for that side of the business as well as presiding over the country managers for each region” she explained.

Vipro Markets was purchased by Tickmill in September this year, and at the time, Tickmill injected $2.20 million into the share capital of Vipro Markets, giving the company a strong capital base to facilitate its future growth.

Ms Nemr considers this to have been an important building block, especially given the future that many smaller brokerages with less capital and reach face in the retail sector.

“When I joined Tickmill, I made sure to emphasize the importance of maintaining the quality service the company has provided its existing customers for the last few years, however it is important to be present in some regions by participating through educational events and focus on high touch relationships with clients and strategic partners, largely as a means of creating long term business, something that is of great concern these days, which ties in well with our corporate ethos of wanting traders to succeed.”

FinanceFeeds concurs that without stable, experienced management with expertise across a broad spectrum of the financial markets industry in bona fide regions, and without expansion plans that are operational rather than campaign-related, the future would be bleak, hence this approach by Tickmill is conducive to sustainability.