In the old days of retail brokerage, of about a decade ago, a broker was typically in the hunt for derivatives products and commercial officers. People who understood currencies and CFDs, perhaps equities. But as the industry is hurtling down a one-way street toward a multi-asset model, where the boundaries between crypto, CFDs and even banking are collapsing, new roles are emerging.
Australian-based broker Pepperstone has recently put a job ad for a Head of Cross-Asset Strategy, a role usually more at home in the mahogany-row boardroom of investment banking.
Across the Asset Universe
“Over the last couple of years,” explains Tom Williams, the broker’s Chief Operating Officer, “we've built a series of new trading products that don’t sit neatly inside any single asset class, from our perpetual CFD range including pre-IPO names most retail clients can't otherwise reach.”
The most valuable opportunities, he goes on, no longer live within asset classes, but in the space between them.
This move toward a “fintech ecosystem” has partly been a defensive maneuver.
Retail brokers are finding their turf encroached upon by crypto giants, which have gone as far as to acquire MiFID licenses to sell derivatives in the EU. Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget, recently told Bloomberg that the crypto exchange considers Robinhood to be a peer.
In 2026, Pepperstone itself launched its own crypto exchange in Australia.
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Williams frames the cross-asset strategy central to Pepperstone’s “mission to build a fintech ecosystem for our clients. It needs dedicated senior ownership to connect our derivatives, crypto and future businesses, and unlock value across asset classes."
The expansion doesn’t stop at instruments. Some retail brokers have been applying for EMI licenses to bypass the traditional banking sector, which has long viewed the industry with chilly suspicion. This has also brought about new roles: Capital.com, for example, is now looking for an EMI CEO.
Product Innovation Becomes a Cross-Asset Craft
The appointment of a "Head of Cross-Asset Strategy” is a sign that the retail market has grown up and become more professionalised. “Clients now expect much more than institutional-grade pricing; they want more asset classes, more sophisticated instruments and markets that run 24/7,” Williams says.
Interestingly, round-the-clock trading appears to be one of the next immediate frontiers for both retail and institutional markets. The New York Stock Exchange is actively exploring and developing infrastructure, including tokenized securities platforms, to introduce round-the-clock equity trading. Meanwhile, Nasdaq announced it will begin trading US stocks for nearly 23 hours a day.
This, in turn, will necessitate product innovation for the industry.
“Our view is that the brokers that treat product innovation as a serious cross-asset craft are the ones that will win,” Williams says. “So we expect to see more roles of this shape appear across the industry, and we're excited for the challenge as it forces us to think differently and evolve.”
