Kathleen Brooks, a well-known financial markets research specialist, has joined XTB UK as its new Research Director. Brooks brings nearly 15 years of experience working with major retail trading and investment firms in London.

Financial Markets Veteran Kathleen Brooks Joins XTB

Brooks started her career at BP before moving into the retail investment sector, working at companies like GAIN Capital, City Index, and Forex.com. She has established herself as an expert in financial markets analysis, often appearing in global media like the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. Brooks is also familiar with news networks providing market commentary and insights.

In her new role at XTB UK, Brooks will lead the research team and provide analysis of global financial markets to help clients make informed investment decisions. This comes as XTB expands its product range to include commission-free stocks and ETFs for long-term investing.

XTB's UK Director, Joshua Raymond, said Brooks' "skillset will enable XTB UK to deepen our research offering to our client base, ensuring they have access to the best market insights."

Brooks added that she is "excited to have joined one of the world's biggest fintech investment providers." She highlighted major events in 2024 like elections and geopolitics that will impact markets. Brooks said investors "must stay up to speed with these developments" to make the "best-informed investment decisions possible."

For XTB, this is another significant hire over the past few months. As exclusively reported by Finance Magnates at the end of November, the publicly traded fintech hired a robotics expert as the head of the newly created artificial intelligence (AI) department. XTB aims to use AI to create tools that streamline business processes and trading tools for individual traders.

XTB Introduces New Services

XTB is hiring for research positions as the company continuously introduces new services and products to maintain a high dynamic in acquiring new clients. In September, the broker introduced ETF-based "Investment Plans" aimed at attracting more passive clients who are not interested in active trading but in saving. Recently, this feature was expanded to include auto-investing of funds, as reported by Finance Magnates.

Meanwhile, XTB is expanding its range of fractional shares to new jurisdictions, including the UK and UAE. XTB aims to "foster an equity culture where private investors, irrespective of their portfolio size, can partake in the performance of companies they believe hold significant potential,” stated Achraf Drid, the CEO of XTB of MENA.

In November, the company offered clients the opportunity to earn up to 5% interest on idle deposits in EUR, USD, GBP, and PLN.

XTB's actions are translating into increased investor confidence. Among the seven publicly traded FX/CFD brokers, XTB's shares were among the strongest performers in 2023, gaining over 22%. Only Swissquote shares saw a stronger increase during this period. In contrast, shares of CMC Markets fell more than 50%.