Christoforos Soutzis on how Limassol-based Capital.com has emerged as one of Europe's top trading platforms

Having reached US$1.3 trillion in client trading volumes in 2023, Limassol-based Capital.com has emerged as one of the top trading platforms in Europe. Here, the company’s Executive Director, Christoforos Soutzis, talks about the company’s growth drivers, the positive effects of increased regulatory activity and, of course, AI.

The Executive Director of trading platform Capital.com, Christoforos Soutzis, sits In a tan office leather chair in the conference room of the company’s new head offices. The multi-storey building with its impressive metal trellis façade, to which Capital.com relocated last October, is a stone's throw away from Limassol’s Old Port. The previous office was bursting at the seams, unable to contain 125 people, and by the end of the year, the headcount will have increased by 15%. Pouring himself a glass of sparkling water, Soutzis explains – in a tone that blends pride and amusement – that the new hires will now bring the new offices close to full capacity. “We are still trying to shape it,” he says, “to create some breakout rooms and turn a floor into an entertainment space. In the old place, we had a lot of people working remotely because we were so overcrowded. Since moving here, we’ve seen people naturally coming back because they are enjoying it. It's been great; I’ve missed the office environment myself.”

Christoforos Soutzis

Capital.com is the brainchild of tech entrepreneur Viktor Prokopenya, whom Soutzis describes as "a visionary." Prokopenya had previously made several investments in brokers and companies that serviced the industry under the investment vehicle VP Capital and mobilised that knowhow to fill a perceived vacuum in the retail brokerage space – Capital.com was and remains the firm’s main project. It started in Belarus, predominantly working as a tech office, before opening a shop in Limassol for operations. Cyprus was meant to become the headquarters, where the company’s foray into the European brokerage space began, since the regulatory framework allowed it to passport to the whole of the EU. The booming local services industry, providing a wealth of talent at a reasonable cost, sealed the deal. Christoforos Soutzis was one of the first hires.

After receiving his Master's Degree in Actuarial Science from London’s Cass Business School (now Bayes Business School), rather than pursuing a high-rewarding role at a major London firm, the Executive Director moved back to Cyprus. He says he was after a more balanced life – he’s now married with two kids, whom he eagerly awaits to reach their teens, so he has an excuse to play video games again! “Now that I see things more clearly,” he says, “I’m not sure if working in London is that rewarding, to be honest.” Nonetheless, when the Cyprus office first opened – with what he describes as the most jaw-dropping view of the Limassol seafront – it operated much like a startup. He wore all the trading hats available and then dabbled in operations. Today, he also runs the operations for the entire company, which has offices in Poland, the UK, Australia, Gibraltar, Bulgaria, Lithuania, the Bahamas and, more recently, the UAE. “We launched with big dreams,” he recalls, “but the first few years were challenging in terms of gaining traction with clients and achieving the growth we hoped for." Despite the challenges, the company remained focused on its goal: to bring the markets to the masses and become the number one trading choice in the process. "From the beginning, our project was about building technology that prioritises our clients. Our platform has been awarded multiple times for its intuitive design and every step we took thereafter was geared towards putting our clients first," Soutzis explains.

Between 2020-2021, Capital.com saw a 430% increase in people using the platform, from around 50,000 to 300,000 – today, it has over 1 million verified traders globally. Interestingly, Soutzis mentions that the company never considered implementing social trading, a feature allowing inexperienced traders to copy the trades of their more experienced counterparts. “We try to incentivise personal decision-making,” he explains. “So, instead of socialising trading and making people follow others’ choices, we give them all the tools to make their own informed decisions.” The platform offers more than 3,000 products, a stable that stands to grow next year, alongside additional features to enhance its user experience. “Meanwhile, our global expansion strategy will be informed by our commitment to grow sustainably and in step with regulation,” he says.

The company’s growth during the pandemic mimicked a market trend driven mainly by millennials armed with stimulus cheques and copious amounts of boredom.

Indeed, the market’s growth hasn’t escaped the attention of Brussels, with the European Commission’s top brass raising entry barriers for brokers to protect investors and weed out bad actors. While not a feature of the business model in most European trading platforms offering zero-commission trading – Capital.com included – the new MiFID updates will ban the payment-for-flow practice, popularised by American brokers like Robinhood almost a decade ago. “Like other regulated brokers, we make our money from spreads,” Soutzis mentions. “Spreads are the difference between the buy and the sell price of a tradable security and can vary in size according to asset and market conditions. We also earn fees from guaranteed stop-loss orders and overnight funding.” In another bid to regulate the market, the European Commission conducted a public consultation in 2023 aimed at levelling the playing field and ensure that consumers enjoy the same level of fairness online and offline. “We certainly welcome such initiatives since we want to have long-term relationships with our clients,” he notes. In the UK, the FCA launched a similar initiative in July 2023, called the Consumer Duty: under the Duty, platforms are tasked with providing customers with products and services that meet their needs and offer fair value. “You need to prove that everything you do is beneficial for the client, which is very hard. Since we are also based in the UK, we have already taken several steps toward this end.” This involves a best interest committee that convenes monthly to assess how the company’s actions impact traders, from significant matters such as platform usage to minor details like response times to trader inquiries. By raising barriers, compliance has become exceedingly expensive, driving a global consolidation trend. For Soutzis, that’s how it should be since, even though they are retail-based businesses, they are still financial institutions. To drive the point home, he mentions that Capital.com is licensed and regulated in five jurisdictions: Cyprus, the UK, Australia, the UAE and the Bahamas.

As he sips his sparkling water on this sunny afternoon in Limassol, he sifts through the papers on the conference table – notes to help guide him through this interview – and settles on a page. I had asked him about the impact of the waning pandemic boom on the company. As it turns out, client numbers have dipped a little – by around 27% between 2022-23 – mirroring trends in the wider industry. “Despite the dip,” he says, “we still saw record-breaking trading. This points to the quality of clients we retain on the platform and shows how high-net-worth and professional traders are increasingly turning to us as their platform of choice.” In 2023, Capital.com surpassed US$1.3 trillion in client trading volumes and clinched the top spot on the latest Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list for the Middle East and Cyprus, boasting a staggering 4,011% revenue growth rate over four years.

Behind this growth, Soutzis explains, is a high-performing team of 700, sourced from different backgrounds, including former video game employees from the popular mobile video game Candy Crush. Another growth pillar has been the company’s focus on education – or as he puts it, giving traders the tools to make informed decisions. That has been the case since day one, since before receiving its CySEC license in 2017, Capital.com launched an educational app called Investmate, which is still available. Today, the platform provides traders with a real-time view of market activities through various news sources. The company also organises webinars and physical seminars, while its YouTube channels, featuring 583 videos, has over 200,000 followers. “We are moving to podcasts, too, but they’re in the early stages,” he says. What truly makes people stay with the platform, he argues, is the company’s technological focus, with half its workforce working in IT or product development. The platform, then, onboards in seconds, with most functions automated, including client document verification, deposit processing and transaction handling, with a significant percentage of withdrawals also automated. “Time is the most valuable asset nowadays,” Soutzis says. “So, we want to minimise unnecessary time spent, since people aren’t here to deal with bureaucracy. Of course, not everything can or should be automated.”

What about Generative AI, then? Does the company have any plans with it?

Reclining in his chair, Soutzis cracks a smile, saying that he had been expecting this question. “It’s a funny story,” he starts, and explains how, when Capital.com officially launched in 2017, it had an AI component for detecting client biases. It was a simple solution, which was eventually shelved. Now, it’s back to the drawing board and, this time, things are different. According to Soutzis, the company has matured from its startup days into a fully formed data-driven corporation, with the only thing retained being the agility to respond to trends. The latest trends and data say that building an LLM chatbot for client inquiries will be a big hit. “For internal matters, we have a library of educational materials, so we are trying to use AI to make the life of our colleagues easier when looking for information on issues such as what the maximum leverage ratio is under a given jurisdiction.”

I put a counterargument to Soutzis: Will a Generative AI-powered chatbot generate friction with clients who are used to human contact?

He shakes his head. “We, as a people, prefer solving things on our own. If I can find a piece of information online, why ask another person? It is faster, more efficient and I can always return to that information fast. That’s why we, as a company, try to put everything in the hands of our clients.”

(Orginal photo by Giorgos Charal)

This profile first appeared in the June edition of GOLD magazine. Click here to view it.