By Mark Evans, Head of Corporate Development at GTN
In a decade spent working in strategy and M&A in the retail brokerage industry, I saw how the industry transformed from monoline, single product offerings into an integrated, multi-product customer experience. The rate of change in the industry is accelerating and the firms that are scaling the fastest are the ones that have partnered for infrastructure rather than trying to build it themselves.
Structural forces are converging
Only 12% of the world’s population holds an investment account, yet nearly 80% of adults have a bank account, more than two-thirds are online, and over half carry a smartphone. The digital rails are in place. What’s missing is the investment infrastructure to connect them. And several powerful mega-trends are making that connection more urgent than ever. An historic intergenerational transfer is placing assets in the hands of a digitally savvy generation. Wealth is accumulating rapidly in emerging markets. Commission-free trading, fractional shares, and the proliferation of neobanks have dismantled many of the remaining barriers to participation. Investing is also globalising and the asset class universe is expanding, with retail clients globally now expecting access to the same cross-border products and asset classes that were once available only to institutions.
Why infrastructure matters more than ever
The financial services landscape is undergoing a fundamental structural shift. Traditional market divisions between brokers and banks, trading and wealth management, and traditional and digital assets are eroding fast. Firms that once operated in a single product vertical are now expanding into adjacent areas. A neobank embeds investment products. A CFD broker adds cash equities and options trading. A wealth manager launches a digital self-service channel. The push to go multi-product and serve new customer segments is relentless.
But expanding into a “new thing” is much harder than it sounds. Each new product, market, or asset class brings its own regulatory framework, operational complexity, and technology requirements. Having spent a decade in the CFD industry, I’ve watched this dynamic play out across the sector. CFD brokers that once focused purely on leveraged derivatives have evolved dramatically, moving into cash equities, options, crypto, and wealth management. New competitors have emerged too, with neobanks, super-apps, and fintechs all pushing into the world of trading and investing. And almost without exception, the firms that have expanded successfully have done so through partnerships or acquisitions. Whether it’s a major listed broker acquiring a specialist platform to enter a new asset class, or a neobank partnering with an infrastructure provider to offer investment products, the pattern is consistent. Even well-resourced firms with deep markets expertise cannot build every new capability organically. The technology, regulatory know-how, and operational DNA required for each new vertical are fundamentally different from what the core business was built to deliver.
Where the retail brokerage market is headed
The retail brokerage landscape five years from now will look very different from today. Three shifts stand out.
First, the neobanks and neobrokers that have already achieved scale will be the primary beneficiaries of the shift towards the “one-stop shop”. With millions of existing customers on their platforms, the cost of adding a new product line is a fraction of what it would take to acquire those customers from scratch. That distribution advantage compounds: each additional service increases engagement and retention, making these ecosystems harder to displace with every product they add. The firms that build comprehensive offerings fastest will define the next era of retail investing. That distribution logic extends beyond traditional financial services too, with new competition arising from consumer-facing apps adding embedded finance and investment capabilities into their customer experiences. Each one will require the same underlying infrastructure to operate.
Second, the geography of investing is expanding. Markets that were once difficult or impossible for retail investors to access are opening up as regulatory barriers fall and cross-border infrastructure improves. Investors increasingly expect global, diversified portfolios as standard, not as a premium add-on. A retail client in Europe wants exposure to Asian growth markets. A saver in the Middle East wants US equities and European ETFs. Meeting that demand requires connectivity to dozens of exchanges, multiple currencies, and a web of local regulatory requirements. That cross-border complexity is precisely the kind of challenge that favours specialist infrastructure partners over in-house builds.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, the next generation of investors expects a fundamentally different experience. They want hyper-personalised portfolios, not off-the-shelf models. They want customised insights tailored to their goals, risk appetite, and life stage. They want seamless, intuitive interfaces that feel like the consumer apps they already use. This is not a “nice to have” for the industry. It is an existential requirement. A younger customer base that has grown up with algorithmic recommendations on every other platform will not accept a generic experience when it comes to their money. The technology to deliver this level of personalisation at scale exists today, but it requires deep infrastructure capabilities that most firms simply do not have in-house.
The common thread across all three shifts is the same one I observed throughout my career: the firms that try to build everything themselves will move too slowly. The ones that partner with specialist infrastructure providers will get to market faster, at lower cost, and with better outcomes for their customers.
The partnership advantage
The question for every firm in retail financial services is no longer whether to go multi-product, but how. Build it yourself and risk falling behind. Acquire the capability and pay a premium for speed. Or partner with a specialist infrastructure provider and get to market faster, at lower cost, with less operational risk. After a decade of watching firms navigate that choice, the pattern is clear: the infrastructure partnership model wins. They provide the plumbing that allows retail-facing firms to innovate on top.
The opportunity is enormous, and the window is open. The firms, the infrastructure providers, and the partnerships that are formed in the next few years will shape how the world invests for the next generation.