It has been several years since your last campaign with a global brand ambassador. Why have you decided to get back to this concept?
Omar Arnaout, CEO of XTB: The XTB brand is strongly recognised around the world and we are aware of how important of a role our former brand ambassadors have played in achieving this goal. In the past few years, we have put a lot of focus on other areas of our business, such as technological development, the increase of our product offering and the strong optimisation of many of our core processes. We will continue to put a lot of focus on those areas, but we also believe that now is the right time to once again work with another great brand ambassador, this time one of the most successful football managers in the history of the sport, José Mourinho.
Mads Mikkelsen was an actor, in 2020 you signed a partnership with a renowned football manager. Do you feel that the world of football resonates better with XTB or has this choice been motivated mostly by marketing factors?
I believe that there are many similarities between being a successful football manager and a successful trader. You should have a strategy that gives you a higher probability of achieving success rather than defeat, but you should also be ready to adapt this strategy depending on the circumstances. You should also be disciplined and mentally tough, because, similarly to managing a football team, losses in trading are part of the process, but what is key is to learn from this experience and come back better and stronger.
Why did you choose José Mourinho to become XTB’s global ambassador?
Choosing José Mourinho as our new brand ambassador was a no brainer to us. José is a winner and he epitomises many of the things many of us would like to achieve in our lives. We as a company work very hard every day to provide our clients with the best quality of service, support and technology for them to achieve success. Similarly to José, we do all that we can to be the best in the world at what we do.
Did the global pandemic have any impact on the campaign with José Mourinho?
The preparation of a successful marketing campaign is a long and often difficult process and the global pandemic surely didn't help in making this process easier. On the other hand, thanks to both José Mourinho and his team, along with the very hard work of our team at XTB, we were able to have the campaign ready with the highest quality of materials with no major delays.
What will be XTB’s major focus during the campaign with José Mourinho?
Our focus during the last few years has not changed and will remain unchanged, with our goal being not only to be one of the biggest brokerage companies in Europe, but also in the world. At this moment, we are also waiting to obtain a license in the Republic of South Africa and in one Asian jurisdiction, where we hope to start our business within the next few months. Additionally, we have always been known for our CFD offering, but two years ago we decided to introduce real stocks and ETFs to our offer, which is an area that we would like to strongly develop in the next few years and hopefully become one of the leading stock providers in the world. This is one of the reasons why we have started our commission free stock trading offer, which we hope will be appreciated by both our current clients as well as new ones.
One of the pillars of XTB is technology. What are your plans within this area?
At this moment, XTB employs over 120 people in its IT department, and technological development is one of the key reasons why we have developed so dynamically in recent years. It is hard for us to imagine our business without having access to our own proprietary trading platforms; xStation & xStation Mobile. Clients' needs are growing dynamically year after year and we have to make sure that we grow at a dynamic pace to ensure that all our clients' needs are met. What is also a meaningful aspect in our growth is the automation and optimisation of many of our processes to ensure that we are able to provide our clients the highest quality service with no time restraints. From the business perspective, it is also very important for us to make decisions based on big data rather than beliefs, and one of the key elements of our growth in recent years has been built on all the reports provided by our data warehouse team, who help us make more calculated and smart decisions in every aspect of our business. Basically speaking there are countless elements that we have developed and improved in recent years and which we plan to continue developing in all the years to come.
One of the biggest factors influencing literally all businesses is the coronavirus. Has the pandemic influenced your business negatively, or rather moved it forward?
We are an internet company providing online services, so the pandemic has not had a negative impact on our business. On the other hand, the pandemic has caused very dynamic market movements which have encouraged higher interest in our services and also higher trading volumes. These elements have allowed us to sign more new accounts in the first half of 2020 than in the last two years and has also allowed us to generate the highest net profits in the history of the company.