Freetrade hires Shahid Naveed as CTO to help build FX and share dealing technology
Freetrade has appointed Shahid Naveed as Chief Technology Officer, based in the online trading company’s London office, where he will be in charge of Freetrade’s global engineering team, which includes an established office in Brisbane, Australia.
Shahid Naveed, who has nearly twenty years of experience gained from roles in some of the world’s fastest-growing businesses, joins Freetrade from Auction Technology Group, where he was VP of Engineering at the operator of marketplaces for curated online auctions.
Prior to that, he was the technical leader for Amazon Video’s Digital Store team, responsible for overseeing the development of Amazon Video’s ownership systems globally.
A wealth of technical knowledge and leadership experience
Shahid Naveed, Chief Technology Officer of Freetrade, said “I am thrilled to join Freetrade as CTO, a company that is clearly passionate about its mission to get everyone investing. I look forward to working with our accomplished leadership team and customer obsessed engineering team to build Freetrade into a truly global brokerage platform that delights our retail investor customers.”
Adam Dodds, Founder and CEO of Freetrade, commented: “I’m excited to welcome Shahid to the Freetrade team. He brings a wealth of technical knowledge and leadership experience to this role. He’s able to dive deep into the details, while also setting out a clear strategy to lead our engineering team. I’ve been impressed with the grit that our technical teams have demonstrated throughout this challenging market environment. We’ve shown as a company that we have what it takes to continue to grow and thrive.”
Freetrade raised £32 million to build self-clearing dealing stack and FX solution
In 2022, Fretrade raised £32 million from existing institutional investors and crowdfunding investors to fuel further development and expansion across the globe, having recently launched the Standard subscription and added new features and functionality, aimed at supporting customers towards better long term financial outcomes.
The FCA-regulated investment platform based in London, United Kingdom, was launched in 2019 and currently caters to more than 1.4 million users looking for a long-term approach to investing with educatino and simple pricing.
Freetrade has been building significant pieces of technical infrastructure over the course of 2022, including:
• Building a fully self-clearing European share dealing stack, that will allow Freetrade to scale its business efficiently across Europe.
• Building its own FX solution that allows Freetrade to go direct to foreign exchange markets and unlock significant savings.
• And a host of new features like a web app, advanced fundamentals and recurring orders.
According to Freetrade, subscription penetration levels have hit 77% for customers with at least £10,000 invested. The trading platform will continue to deliver new features while pushing beyond Sweden and into the rest of Europe.
Freetrade’s app offers commission-free stock investment and is targeted mainly at millennials. The company has rebuilt its platform infrastructure for investing to allow traders to place their instant orders without having to pay a commission fee. Freetrade holds a ‘full scope firm’ license from the FCA.
