Gavin, it’s been a number of years since we final did an in-depth cowl interview function with you. Since that point how have you ever gone about turning 26 Levels right into a agency which is uniquely positioned to supply dependable, sustainable, and high-quality entry to prime companies?
A lot has modified on the planet, in a frighteningly brief time, since our final chat. Leaving apart a number of the monumental developments which have occurred just lately within the world political-economic atmosphere, our trade continues to undergo generational adjustments.
On daily basis, world banks withdraw farther from offering prime companies, primarily as a result of wise regulatory reforms post-GFC. On the similar time, they’re reducing the supply of ancillary companies like capital introduction, outsourced execution and advisory companies.
Since we final spoke, we’ve continued to evolve 26 Levels into a worldwide non-bank prime companies supplier anchored on reliability, transparency, and tailor-made entry, exactly to benefit from the truth that there are such a lot of shoppers of the financial institution prime brokers who’re in search of options. They’re fighting the minimal fee necessities, the minimal collateral hurdles and albeit, what they’re saying to us is that they desperately want a extra attentive, bespoke service.
We’ve got had success by specializing in sustainable infrastructure, resilient connectivity, deep liquidity, and a risk-conscious stability sheet, whereas guaranteeing we’re offering our shoppers with a real partnership; somebody who cares about what they want reasonably than simply commoditised entry.
From my perspective, our strategy to making an attempt to construct the suitable providing for our shoppers is all about two issues – crew and expertise.
What components of the world does the corporate now have a presence in?
From our distinctive headquarters on the historic World Struggle 2-era Submarine Base Platypus, on the waterfront of Sydney Harbour, we’ve constructed a really spectacular world presence. Our London and Tokyo workplace function key buying and selling and relationship hubs, complemented by a big again workplace/administrative crew in Cyprus and a rising presence in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. This worldwide community ensures 24-hour protection and native experience throughout each main time zone. We’ve deliberately chosen places the place we felt the atmosphere was proper for us to ascertain a sustainable presence. They’re locations the place regulation, infrastructure, and consumer demand intersect, permitting us to ship constant service high quality and seamless entry to liquidity. Every regional workplace displays the identical tradition – entrepreneurial, client-focused, and performance-driven, but tailored to native market nuances and regulatory frameworks.
What vary of asset lessons does the agency help?
26 Levels gives prime entry throughout FX, metals, indices, commodities, alongside a complete suite of Fairness CFDs and artificial exposures. Our multi-asset strategy permits shoppers to optimise capital effectivity whereas managing various buying and selling methods below one roof. We’ve pioneered “Pairs CFDs”, enabling shoppers to precise relative worth views throughout property like gold versus main indices or commodities – a primary within the non-bank house. Past spot and derivatives, our connectivity extends into liquidity aggregation, clearing, and collateral administration, making a single-access level for world merchants and asset managers in search of environment friendly, scalable multi-asset publicity.
How has your consumer combine been rising and evolving and why are growing numbers of corporations selecting to work with 26 Levels?
Our consumer base has matured from energetic buying and selling boutiques into a various ecosystem of hedge funds, asset managers, prop buying and selling corporations, and dealer sellers. More and more, shoppers are drawn to us as a substitute for financial institution PBs whose thresholds and balance-sheet constraints have tightened. Purchasers worth our agility, private engagement, and deep operational competence. Many now view us as an extension of their infrastructure reasonably than a counterparty. Development has come organically by way of fame and word-of-mouth – a testomony to efficiency and belief. Purchasers keep as a result of we ship constant pricing, resilient infrastructure, and real human relationships.
Please inform us just a little concerning the scope of the important thing merchandise and dealer supplier options that 26 Levels presents?
Our providing spans full prime companies – from commerce execution to clearing, reporting, margin financing, artificial options and outsourced execution options. We differentiate by way of innovation. Our stay margining and account standing reporting, outsourced execution suite, and multi-asset bridge expertise simplify advanced buying and selling ecosystems. Purchasers entry liquidity from a number of Tier-1 venues whereas sustaining transparency by way of our institutional-grade reporting and analytics. We act as each enabler and accomplice, offering infrastructure and credit score intermediation designed for sustainability and scalability. The purpose isn’t to be the most important, it’s to be essentially the most dependable and intelligently structured prime accomplice within the non-bank house.
Who’re the important thing members of your senior govt crew and the way has their expertise and experience throughout a number of asset lessons helped you to construct a world class enterprise sooner than many might need anticipated?
Our core management crew, which incorporates James Alexander, Nabil Rahman, Peter Bickerton and Esteban Mora, have been with 26 Levels since its inception, bringing deep expertise throughout banking, hedge funds, buying and selling expertise, and threat administration. Every senior govt, from operations and threat to liquidity and product technique, contributes institutional-grade self-discipline and entrepreneurial drive. This fusion has allowed us to scale sooner than many anticipated. Our world heads all share a mindset of excellence, accountability, and curiosity. Collectively, we’ve created a tradition the place innovation is balanced with management. That’s why we proceed to draw distinctive expertise and institutional shoppers globally.
In what methods has the prime companies trade been experiencing important transformation over the previous few years and what components are at play right here?
Prime companies have undergone structural change. Conventional banks proceed retrenching as a result of balance-sheet prices, regulatory complexity, and threat urge for food shifts – leaving subtle shoppers in search of different and extra versatile companions. On the similar time, shoppers demand multi-asset entry, transparency, and bespoke liquidity options.
Expertise is democratising what was as soon as unique, and the emergence of non-bank primes like 26 Levels is filling that void. We’ve seen the trade evolve towards built-in service ecosystems – execution, clearing, financing, and threat, delivered by way of environment friendly expertise and trusted relationships. Agility and experience, not stability sheet alone, now defines management within the fashionable prime panorama.
Do you suppose the necessity for different prime companies will proceed to develop over the following few years and the way essential will that be for 26 Levels?
The demand for different prime companies will solely speed up. As banks proceed rationalising shoppers and merchandise, corporations want agile companions who can present institutional-grade infrastructure with out restrictive thresholds. For 26 Levels, this represents a generational alternative. We’re positioned because the bridge between subtle buying and selling corporations and the liquidity ecosystem – credible, well-capitalised, and technologically superior. The subsequent part of progress will come from diversification – supporting funds, brokers, and prop homes who worth independence and adaptability. Various primes like us usually are not “second tier”; we’re now the brand new customary for responsive, relationship-driven, fashionable market entry.
There may be growing sophistication within the instruments brokers are utilizing to handle threat and phase their consumer base. How are you catering for this and in what methods is it influencing how you’re employed with them, for instance in structuring liquidity and supporting differing movement profiles?
Brokers and funds in the present day deploy superior analytics to handle threat, liquidity, and capital effectivity. We help them by mirroring that sophistication – offering configurable liquidity streams, real-time analytics, and execution routing tuned to their movement profiles. Our liquidity administration framework segments shoppers by technique and behavior, guaranteeing we match the suitable liquidity to the suitable movement. This alignment reduces toxicity, improves pricing, and advantages either side of the commerce. Expertise underpins all of it: API-driven reporting, margin stress instruments, and dynamic credit score monitoring. The result’s precision-engineered prime entry that scales intelligently with consumer complexity.
What consumer segments, for instance hedge funds, are you presently focusing your online business progress efforts round and the way a lot of a problem is it to satisfy their distinctive wants?
We proceed to develop amongst hedge funds, systematic merchants, {and professional} asset managers who want institutional execution with out restrictive financial institution hurdles. Every phase has distinctive necessities – from leverage and collateral flexibility to execution velocity and knowledge integration – and we’ve constructed infrastructure to help these bespoke wants.
Servicing them means deep collaboration: customized margin frameworks, liquidity maps, and capital-efficient constructions. Whereas competitors for this phase is intense, our means to mix expertise with real value-driving relationship administration units us aside. We’re not chasing volumes or league tables, we’re persevering with to construct sturdy partnerships with subtle, globally energetic shoppers.
e-Foreign exchange is more and more exploring the potential functions for subsequent technology applied sciences like AI and Machine Studying in FX. What are your ideas concerning the implications of those for each merchants and their service suppliers?
AI and machine studying are reworking FX and derivatives markets. For merchants, they improve technique design, execution timing, and threat detection. For service suppliers like us, they’ve revolutionised surveillance, pricing, and consumer analytics. We use AI to refine liquidity routing, detect anomalies, and automate reporting – enhancing each effectivity and management. The important thing, in fact, is stability. Utilizing AI to empower human experience, not substitute it. As knowledge volumes develop exponentially, the winners shall be those that combine machine intelligence seamlessly into decision-making, compliance, and consumer expertise. At 26 Levels, that’s the core of our expertise roadmap.
One other essential space we’re specializing in at current is the growing institutional engagement with Digital Belongings. What are your views about this quick rising asset class and in what methods will you be positioning 26 Levels to seize the alternatives it presents?
Frankly, Trump has modified the whole lot. Institutional adoption of digital property has matured dramatically. We’re seeing rising demand for regulated, clear entry to tokenised and artificial exposures reasonably than pure crypto hypothesis. 26 Levels is positioning itself to service that evolution – providing prime-style credit score intermediation and clearing for digital property inside established threat frameworks. Our shoppers need consistency, acquainted constructions, skilled custody, and built-in reporting. We’re not chasing hype, we’re constructing the infrastructure that can permit establishments to commerce, finance, and hedge digital property responsibly because the asset class turns into a everlasting function of recent markets.
26 Levels was just lately named one of many prime 10 greatest locations to work in Australia. How have you ever gone about creating such a optimistic office atmosphere?
Tradition is the whole lot. That has in all probability been crucial studying of my profession. Constructing a enterprise is completely about getting the tradition and folks proper. From day one, we constructed 26 Levels round respect, empowerment, and accountability – values that scale with the corporate. Being named one in all Australia’s Prime 10 Finest Locations to Work displays our perception that top efficiency and wellbeing coexist. In truth, they’re mutually dependent. We prioritise autonomy, communication, {and professional} progress, and guarantee management stays approachable and clear.
My precedence – my essential private obligation – isn’t to our shareholders; it’s to our employees. Ensuring everybody within the firm can advance their profession in the best way they need to. Folks be a part of us as a result of they need to do significant work in a crew that cares. They keep as a result of they really feel trusted. A optimistic tradition isn’t a slogan. Whether it is, it will get came upon shortly. It’s the compounding impact of day by day behaviours that reinforce belief and excellence.
26 Levels additionally continues to win essential trade awards. How essential are the long-term partnerships you will have constructed and proceed to construct in serving to you to realize and preserve this recognition?
Our trade awards and recognition come from long-term relationships, not advertising and marketing spin. We view each consumer, liquidity supplier, and expertise vendor as a strategic accomplice. These relationships are constructed on mutual belief, efficiency, and shared ambition. And by this level, over a decade of partnering collectively.
Business recognition validates that client-centric strategy, however it’s the partnerships themselves that maintain it. Our collaborative model extends past business preparations: we contribute to regulatory dialogue, expertise innovation, and market integrity initiatives. That collective effort reinforces 26 Levels’ fame as a trusted, credible counterparty in an trade that values integrity, resilience and innovation.
As 26 Levels continues to seize market share, what plans do you will have for growing your worldwide footprint additional?
We’re persevering with to develop internationally by way of a mixture of natural growth and strategic partnerships. Dubai, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong are our subsequent focal factors – all providing robust regional ecosystems and regulatory readability. I’m most enthusiastic about a number of the alternatives we’re exploring in North America although. Our growth philosophy is straightforward: comply with consumer demand, guarantee regulatory power, and by no means compromise service high quality. Every new jurisdiction we enter reinforces our mission – to supply world attain with native experience and uncompromising reliability.
26 Levels presently combines market main expertise and automatic options with a extremely personalised service and a product that’s customised to your shoppers wants. Is {that a} recipe in your future success as nicely or will you retain adapting the formulation?
Our success lies in combining automation and personalisation – and that stability will proceed to evolve. Expertise delivers effectivity, scalability, and management, whereas human relationships drive belief and understanding. We’ll preserve adapting that formulation, guided by consumer suggestions and market dynamics. As buying and selling wants, expertise, asset lessons, and regulation evolve, so will 26 Levels – at all times grounded in reliability, experience and trusted relationships.
