Wealth & finance International - Finance Awards 2016

Finance Awards 2016 16 Most Innovative Finance Team - Canada & Online Brokerage Firm of the Year: Qtrade Investor Qtrade Financial Group is an award-winning, integrated Canadian financial services company offering comprehensive and competitive solutions to financial institutions as well as direct to individual investors. We caught up with Chief Financial Officer Craig Fookes to learn more about the business and gain a fascinating insight into its future plans. Company: Qtrade Financial Group Name: Craig Fookes Email: [email protected] Website: www.qtrade.ca Address: Suite 1920, One Bentall Centre, 505 Burrard Street, Box 85, Vancouver, BC V7X 1M6 Ever since its inception back in 1999, Qtrade has maintained its roots as a B2B provider of financial services to a diverse set of partners that include Credit Unions, Investment Counsellors as well as Banks and Insurance companies which is to say that we deal with partners of all sizes and financial service backgrounds. Starting out initially by providing an Online Brokerage platform to Partners who otherwise might not have the ability to enter the market, Qtrade Investor has been managed in a way that has continually delivered a top ranked platform. In later years Qtrade extended other financial services to our partners including Wealth Management, both security and mutual fund offerings, Insurance, and Asset Management, that has ultimately filled out the financial services suite to its B2B partners. “At Qtrade we continuously strive to support the success of our B2B partners through our diverse offering, which allows our partners to select the services they want a la carte, while tirelessly enhancing existing and new processes, systems, and products,” Craig comments. “Indeed, a key Qtrade philosophy is to operate as a FinTech firm that combines the use of proprietary and off the shelf technology to create unique offerings for our partners and their clients. We have seen great success in this area, particularly versus much larger firms such as banks, based on our ability to be nimbler and manage time to market more effectively.” Finance, similar to other professional activities, has seen continued change in the past years that have been driven by both external and internal factors. Externally Qtrade have already noted the influence from the various regulatory areas and have also seen a marked change in expectations and requirements from all levels of internal management. Craig is eager to emphasise his firm’s role in the latest industry innovations. “Our regulatory regime here at Qtrade has been driving change recently in the areas of client fees, fee disclosure, and fiduciary responsibility, much the same as we have seen in Europe and other markets. In addition, we have seen continued tax oversight and reporting requirements from a number of jurisdictions. Lastly, we participate in the continued changes from the accounting bodies that include pronouncement changes, disclosures, and internal control requirements. “While these industry influencers are certainly not unique to Canada, what creates the greater challenge for us is the ability to absorb additional expense load related to these increased requirements. Given the geographic size, client diversity, and population it is difficult for many firms to gain the required scale and associated revenues to succeed. Not surprisingly we have seen a number of smaller broker/ dealer firms close up shop or merge with larger firms over the past 24 months. “Other key developments include continual demands for reporting, metrics, and detailed analytics to support the business as well as the expectation for an increased level of participation from financial personnel in support of business decisions. These influencers have caused a greying of the accounting and analytical Finance roles and has produced profound impacts on people entering into the financial profession where it is no longer largely technical skills but rather now also requires a mix of business logic, analytical concepts, and communication skills.” Alongside its commitment to providing the most up to the minute solutions and services for clients, what sets Qtrade apart is its internal culture, which is supportive and ensures that staff are always client focused. “Fundamentally it is our operating environment and culture that make Qtrade unique in our industry, and while this does create hiring challenges, particularly in the Finance area, but also presents opportunities. When we hire new accounting staff we leverage off of the opportunity to describe how working at Qtrade cannot be compared to a traditional transactional based job but rather a job where they can expect to use analytics to support results, be client service oriented, and gain industry experience that they likely would not be exposed to in other traditional accounting roles. Hiring like-minded finance people who understand and see the value of these differences has not presented any problems to date and has certainly enhanced our departmental culture.” FI160012