“The majority of revenue for a broker and, you
know, correct me if I’m wrong on this, if anybody knows better, but the
majority of their revenue comes from their B book functionality,” opined Kieran
Duff, the Head of UK Growth and Business Development at Darwinex at FMLS:25.
Duff, Speaking with Jonathan Fine, Content Strategist
at Ultimate Group, used his time not to talk about quick wins or marketing
tricks, but about the virtue of patience in both trading and business.
Redefining the Broker Model
Darwinex, he explained, walks an unorthodox path.
“Think of us as a company that owns a broker, but we’re not a broker in the
traditional sense,” he said. The firm forgoes the common B-book approach—where
brokers profit from client losses—in favor of pure A-book execution and a model
that capitalizes on nurturing profitable traders.
He drew a clear line between Darwinex’s model and the
broader industry’s habit of squeezing as much profit as possible from clients
in a short time before they disappear.
Darwinex is a London-headquartered multi-asset broker
and asset manager, founded in 2012, that provides an platform where traders
can trade forex, CFDs, stocks, ETFs and futures while simultaneously building a
verified track record that can attract investor capital under its regulatory
umbrella, earning performance fees when investors allocate to their strategies.
Instead, he stressed that Darwinex does not take
positions against its traders and has deliberately chosen a harder route,
prioritizing sustained, long-term trading results over quick commercial gains.
“So instead of capturing lifetime value of your client
and how can we, you know, as a business, make the most money out of this person
for the longest period of time whilst capturing their best interest. Death time
value is how can we take as much money off this person before, you know, they
die and then move on.”
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But the humor quickly gave way to Duff’s core message:
genuine success in trading, as in brokerage management, rarely rewards
short-term thinking. Referencing a quote he half-remembered, he said, “If
you focus on the long-term goal and do everything with that in mind, that’s the
real shortcut.”
The Prop Trading Paradox
Asked about the booming prop trading sector, Duff
admitted his views were “highly opinionated.” While he acknowledged that the
rise of funded account models had “potential to benefit the industry,” he
warned that their near-zero barriers to entry also foster unhealthy trading
behavior.
“So, I could go to the pub. Let’s say you’d never
heard of trading before. I could say, did you know you can spend 500 pounds,
get a hundred thousand dollars in buying power and you can make 10 grand next
week. You will tell me where to sign.”
“But the problem with the funding companies and not, I
never hear anybody talk about this is they create an artificial environment for
you to trade in.”
He recounted a personal experience in which a software
error nearly cost him his account—a mistake corrected only after he reached a
firm board member through personal connections. “That changed my view
completely. I realized how fragile these setups can be.”
Learning, Slowly
While Duff personally profits from prop trading as an
experienced trader, he advised newcomers to be cautious. “You trade a prop
account completely differently than a personal or investor account,” he said.
“If you keep chasing short-term rewards, you’ll stay stuck in that loop. You’re
the perfect client—for them.”
In one of the interview’s most candid moments, Duff
reflected on humility and growth. Now seven years into trading and three years
in the industry, he recently began studying for the Investment Management
Certificate—and was struck by how vast the knowledge gap remains.
More from FMLS:25: “Prop Trading Will Transform FX Like Retail Did 25 Years Ago,” ATFX’s Drew Niv at FMLS:25
“And I realised as soon as I opened that book and read
the first two sentences, there’s a huge gap between my knowledge now being a
trader for seven years, working in the industry for three years. You know,
there’s still a huge gap of what I know and where I need to be.”
AI: Tool, Not Oracle
The conversation closed on artificial intelligence, a
recurring theme at this year’s summit. Duff sees AI as a productivity enhancer,
not a replacement for judgment or intuition.
“So, I will utilize AI for my productivity so that I
can take notes, I can build emails, I can do all of these different things that
might take me five minutes to do a task, but I can do it in 30 seconds like
that. Okay. Only backend? No writing? No trading analysis? I don’t use it for
trade.”
He cautioned against overhyping automation. “But even
if you give somebody, and I will stand by this, you know, with anybody that I
speak to, you could give somebody all the tools, all the capital, the setup,
the infrastructure, the environment, everything that they need to succeed.”
As the interview wrapped, Duff’s philosophy seemed to
circle back to his recurring idea—that sustainable growth, whether for traders
or firms, is never instantaneous. “Take the long haul,” he smiled. “Use AI for
efficiency—but not for thinking.”
This article was written by Jared Kirui at www.financemagnates.com.
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