Exclusive: Goldex to become a B2B gold provider for fintechs

CEO Sylvia Carrasco says Goldex’s focus will be on helping fintechs to add gold to their offerings.

London-based gold trading app Goldex is making a massive change to its business model, by becoming a B2B gold trading provider for fintechs and financial institutions, AltFi can exclusively reveal.

The startup, which won the AltFi Pitch Off at our 2019 London Summit with its consumer-focused trading app, is now in the process of onboarding its first three business clients, including a well-known UK fintech, along with players in Turkey and Dubai.

CEO Sylvia Carrasco told AltFi that after signing up over 16,000 retail clients, she realised that “fishing one by one” wasn’t the best option for Goldex as its marketing and customer service costs started to grow.

“I’m actually an institutional person, I’ve dealt with institutions all my life, and that’s when I realised we need to start fishing with a net.”

At the same time, Carrasco says the change in business model is prompted by the maturing fintech landscape whereby players “cannot just be focused on just one asset class anymore, you cannot just be focused on savings.”

The convergence around more products, more verticals, in order to satisfy customers is also leading more fintechs to add gold to their offerings, but typically through ETFs which is “not good enough” according to Carrasco.

Retail traders can continue to use Goldex, but the CEO is clear that this is no longer a key focus for the company.

Along with the three fintechs mentioned above, Carrasco says discussions are progressing with additional clients in Germany and the UK.

Under upcoming Basel III financial regulations, banks and platforms offering gold trading will have to increase their cash or cash-equivalent holdings for unallocated client gold purchases to 85 per cent—something which Goldex thinks it can also help with given it has always operated by allocating physical gold holdings.

“Over the last 18 months we have designed and developed the ultimate solution for B2B and B2B2C companies to be able to compete within their industry and at a time when the gold landscape is changing,” said Carrasco.

“Being the first to market is always a competitive advantage and we are excited to be in this privileged position.”