With a presence spanning three continents and eleven countries, and more than 100 employees, Grand Capital owner and CEO Stanislav Vaneev has a lot on his plate. Finance Magnates sat down with Mr Vaneev to hear about the challenges the broker is facing, its future plans, and to understand what he sees as the biggest trends the industry is going through.
Please tell about yourself and how you reached your current role.
I graduated from the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the time of perestroika, a Russian version of the Great Depression. My career in architecture didn’t promise decent income, so I decided to try myself in the field of entrepreneurship. I’ve opened and closed quite a few businesses, there was even time when I was organizing rave parties. However, I have always been interested in financial markets, stock trading in particular.
One day my interest led me to the Moscow exchange and since then my professional life has been associated with it. I have built up a team of like-minded professionals and opened the very first Grand Capital office in 2006. Now the company has over 40 offices all over the world.
I am convinced that one of the major success factors for any entrepreneur is the people who work alongside them. Our team consists of enthusiastic young professionals, who help me move the company forward. The success of the company and its rapid growth in the recent years would not have been possible without the great people that work and have worked in Grand Capital.
What are your goals for the company for the next few years?
Providing services for forex traders is not our only focus. We also invest in IT heavily. One of our most recent projects is UpTrader, a brokerage software development company. The fact that it took only one year for the company to gain popularity on the market shows how insightful we were to see the potential for such an offer. At the moment there is no other company on the market that develops literally everything that is needed to start a brokerage from scratch. The company takes on complicated projects, from a trader’s area to CRM and bonus programs, all tailored to the clients’ individual needs, as well as develops turnkey solutions.
Another interesting project is Grand Class, a remote education system, which addresses the need of thousands of schools and companies to have a reliable online education software. So far the project only exists on Russian market, but it will be available in a variety of languages in the nearest future.
The CySEC regulation we are soon to acquire will, undoubtedly, open new markets and give a new span to the development of the company
In 2017 some major changes will be implemented to a number of our existing services. The two priorities are our LAMM copy trading service and the release of our very first binary options mobile trading app.
Finally, the CySEC regulation we are soon to acquire will, undoubtedly, open new markets and give a new span to the development of the company.
What do you think sets you apart from the competition?
At Grand Capital any trader will find something up to their needs and standards: the range of services we offer is quite broad. At the moment our services include binary options in MetaTrader 4 and WebTerminal, over 250 futures and stock CFDs, classic forex, and investment portfolios.
The reason for that is that since 2006 we have worked in different regions, provided services for different kinds of clients and different exchanges. We are not always keen on following client’s mood and making changes based solely on that. However we always consider the overall trend, implement some of the suggested solutions and many of them stay.
Over the years we have developed a pool of instruments that are of high demand and we are planning to keep advancing it. When it comes to investment projects, we always follow our own path. For example, we turned away from PAMM service, as it discredited itself and carried certain risks to our reputation as well as potential danger to our clients.
We are not always keen on following client’s mood and making changes based solely on that
We’ve decided to take on LAMM service instead, which is also an investment service, but, at the same time, completely transparent: there is a rating of account managers, which displays the history of the account’s profitability. With such transparency, if you are not among best, everyone will see it and you are unlikely to attract many clients. It makes you really work on your trading skills before having other people entrust you their funds.
How do you view the current state of the industry?
The latest tendencies are aimed at over-regulating the industry. Countries forbid certain assets, regulators impose strict measures. Ideally it should cause therapeutic effect on the market. But there are downfalls here. The more flexible the industry is, the stronger is the impulse for its development, for creating innovations, for breakthroughs. I believe that financial education is what should concern the regulatory bodies in the first place. Educated investors are the best regulator.
Another possible turn of events is both brokers and clients moving to more 'comfortable' jurisdictions due to the tight regulations.
What new fields or opportunities do you see as growth potential in the market?
The growth potential lies in diversification of markets in which the company is operating, as well as the number of products and services offered to different audiences. The core set of broker’s services is and will remain quite standard. The key to success is to provide high-quality services, whether it’s a rebate, copy trade, Risk Management , quotations or Liquidity in general.
Concerning the markets, if the company aims to provide its services not on a particular market, but chooses several directions, it helps to mitigate the consequences of regional economic problems.
