Zenfinex, a London-headquartered FX and CFDs broker, has gained a Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) license to expand its services in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Finance Magnates learned exclusively.
"Zenfinex's DFSA license will allow us to expand our professional and institutional offerings across the MENA region and cater to our growth strategy to be one of the leading providers in the region," Zenfinex's MENA CEO, Michel Chabbouh said.
The new license came after the broker expanded into Sierra Leone by acquiring Stochastic Africa, regulated by the central bank of Sierra Leone, and rebranded the company to Zenfinex Africa. Earlier this year, it received a license from the regulator of Seychelles.
Becoming a Global Broker
Established in 2017, the company is now regulated in four jurisdictions: the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA ) in the UK, DFSA in Dubai, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in Seychelles, and the central bank of Sierra Leone.
Zenfinex was initially set up as a boutique broker but is now expanding to become a global brand. Now, all the regulatory licenses will ensure the broker's ambitions to be fully operational in Asia, Africa, GCC, LATAM and the UK during 2022.
"2022 has been a continuation of our focused efforts to build a solid foundation and infrastructure for longer-term scalability and growth," said Nick Cooke, the Founder of Zenfinex and now a board member.
"Our key areas of focus have been to build a first-class global team, a diversified product suite with over 1000+ instruments, a global regulatory presence, and to continue building proprietary technology products to appeal to a mass audience globally. 2023 will be heavily focused on client acquisition as we enter the next phase of our growth, building on these strong foundations we have put in place."
Apart from the licenses, the company onboarded a few top management executives: Alexander Kritiotis as the Chief Operating Officer, Zahid Mahmood as the Chief Risk Officer, and Joe Tom Nyama as the Head of Africa. In addition, it strengthened the MENA team by recently hiring Christelle Haddad as the Head of Customer Support for the region. Now, it has about 100 staff with a few more hires in the pipeline.
On top of that, the revenue of the broker jumped by 1,281 percent in 2021. However, its losses mounted to £1.7 million due to increased administrative costs, mostly because it "invested in people and infrastructure to support future growth."
