Recently ProbusFX - a retail broker based in Cyprus - announced on Monday that it had changed its trade name to SquaredDirect. The new name comes after the broker formed a partnership with Squared Financial, a company which, as its name suggests, provides a variety of financial services to the retail and institutional market.
SquaredDirect's Head of Marketing Dora Christofi dives into the group's rebranding process and explains in depth the specifics behind the new company's outlook.
What did the rebranding process look like and what were the challenges you phased?
As our CEO, Youssef Barakat, indicated in his interview we decided to rebrand ProbusFX since we have paired up with our sister company Squared Financial Services Limited, which has been successfully servicing institutional customers and professional traders for over a decade, to form the Squared Financial group.
ProbusFX rebranded as SquaredDirect, while Squared Financial Services Limited is now trading under SquaredPro. By rebranding ourselves as SquaredDirect and belonging under the same group with our sister company SquaredPro, we are now able to provide our customers with the best selection of financial services available in the financial markets today.
It’s been 5 months since we decided to rebrand ProbusFX to SquaredDirect. We tried to expedite the process of going live with our new brand name before the end of 2018, so we can have 2019 to focus completely on our clients.
Regarding rebranding challenges, I would say that they were easier to accomplish because we had originally defined a rebranding plan and we already knew from the start what we wanted to do and where we wanted to head towards. We knew the goals of the group and the goals of each company separately.
All people who were involved in the rebranding process were very excited and passionate for the new brand. Rebranding is a big challenge but at the same time it’s a big opportunity to restructure a company making it able to achieve its long-term goals.
We defined our Corporate Group identity internally. I wanted to bring all the rebranding process in-house without having to involve any external agents and 3rdparty marketing service providers, since our people are the ones who know our company’s culture, products and services. In a short period of time, we hosted internal branding workshops, presented ideas and worked on a variety of concepts before finalizing our corporate identity.
I believe that if a company decides to enlist external agents in its rebranding process then it can be a big challenge. It is often difficult to pass the right message of what the company wants to achieve to individuals who are not working full-time for the company, and that usually ends up in time-consuming and effort-costly trial by error.
On the contrary, internal organizational communication is much easier and more effective since our people already know our strategy and the long-term goals of the Squared Financial Group.
There has been a lot of work done pertaining to our corporate brand, our Group website, the individual company websites, the client onboarding journey, our Client Portal, branded as Squared Lounge, our social media profiles and all email communications with our clients and partners.
Tell me about the new logo for SquaredDirect, what is its origin and what was the rationale behind the design?
We kept the original red square from our sister company Squared Financial and replaced the internal circle with the upper half of the letter S. The Logo identifies the Business in its simplest form by the use of a Squared icon that includes the letter S
derived from the Group’s name. The capital S itself, can be related to a variety of strong words including Serious, Strong, Safe/Secure, and Successful; words which are symbolically associated with the Companies that form our group.
Marketers have been forced to adapt, what challenges have new regulations meant for this space and has the status quo changed?
All the new measures which have been applied by regulators aim at protecting the client from scams or deception. Due to new marketing restrictions, Leverage limits on positions, Negative Balance protection and so forth, all CMOs will have to reevaluate their marketing strategy to apply to all these news measures making sure all new regulation rules are followed.
Even when we operated as ProbusFX we had never used aggressive marketing by offering high leverage ratios or by promising any kind of bonuses. Our mentality has always been to serve our client’s interests, to give something back to our clients e.g. personalized content and to maintain long term business relationships with them.
Do you foresee a further industry consolidation or will now see only the strongest and most prepared brokers survive following industry challenges and headwinds?
The FX industry is under pressure from all the new regulations but I believe it will continue to grow nonetheless. Some brokers will expand in other jurisdictions outside Europe in order to attract more clients whilst others will probably prefer to market to clients who just want transparency and do not want further trading benefits.
Firms who are able to focus on their customers by tailoring their products and services to match the client’s specific needs, situation and appetite for risk are the ones who are going to survive. The champions will be the ones who invest in developing specialized products and services and who are able to adapt to the rapid industry changes and client demands.
In what ways does SquaredDirect effectively market itself to clients that other competitors do not?
Competition within the FX industry has always been strong. SquaredDirect is a True DMA/STP Brokerage Firm. This means that our model guarantees there is no conflict of interest between us and our clients allowing us to be more transparent.
We make sure to provide our clients with the ability to enjoy fast and reliable market order execution by having our servers hosted by EQUINIX LD4 in London. Our STP model provides Direct Market Access with almost instant order execution helping our clients to boost their performance by using low latency connections for swift and precise order execution.
We heavily invest in providing innovative trading technologies to our clients. We have already formed a strong and dynamic in-house technology team in order to design and implement our own technology tools to ensure our clients have all the trading tools they need readily at their disposal.
Apart from the technology that we have already implemented, we are building innovative tools to open up to new opportunities that will help us release more new products and services.
In order for SquaredDirect to stay ahead of the competition, we pay close attention to our clients’ demands. Our 24/5 support team is always available to deal with queries and to solve any issues they might have. Alongside our proactive customer support, we deliver daily personalized, consistent and valuable content to all our clients that empowers their trading.
Surveying the overall industry do you foresee a continued emphasis on proper marketing efforts as a means of bolstering brokerage operations?
Effective marketing requires a well-thought plan and such a plan is what will move us towards meeting our long-term goals. Marketing strategies should firstly be aligned with new regulatory measures. Then, marketers should focus on their target market and need to be able to connect with the correct audience.
Both Sales and Marketing should coordinate their operations to meet the same goals and combine efforts to attact more value.
At SquaredDirect, our goal in marketing is to deliver propositions of the highest quality and value that can strengthen our position within the industry, build customer loyalty and ultimately achieve our long-term goals. Digital marketing is our main focus.
We offer a customer-centric digital journey and plan on growing our group from an awareness, engagement, conversion and retention perspective.
We understand the importance of information-rich content, innovative technologies, user-friendly interfaces, and total transparency. At the end of the day, we want our clients to be able to realize their goals and to enjoy their time trading with SquaredDirect.
Disclaimer: The content of this article is sponsored and does not represent the opinions of Finance Magnates.
