Please share a brief profile on your field of business and how you came into your current role.
As the CEO of Century Financial Consultancy, I have always believed in being slightly unconventional in my approach to doing business. Thanks to the efforts of my team in helping me support my vision, we have also been fortunate in being pretty successful in what we do.
In many ways, I consider myself a go-getter. Starting my career as office assistant before becoming a junior dealer, I later managed to make the shift to key positions in the field of business acquisition. I take pride in the fact that since then, I put in those extra hours, showing unwavering dedication, hard work and some tenacity to follow my dreams. I’m happy to say that the hard work has paid off, allowing me to become the individual I am today.
Century Financial commenced its journey in 1989 with the vision of making investments across global financial markets accessible and easy for the local and expat investors in the region.
With services that include investment consultancy, research and analysis, dedicated client support and asset management, it quickly established itself in the market as a dependable financial service provider.
Over the next three decades, it evolved into the region’s top investment and trading firm in the UAE, and a trusted investment solutions provider with a client-centric approach that places its customers at the heart of its business.
Century Financial caters to customers across the UAE and GCC, and serves as a springboard for investors looking to expand their investments across the major global markets while maintaining exemplary service standards.
Its success led to the formation of three subsidiary companies that offer specialised verticals.
Century Private Wealth, located in the DIFC, focuses on private wealth management. Meanwhile, Century Bank Brokers delivers incisive retail banking solutions across the UAE by partnering with local financial institutions and non-banking finance companies and banks.
Lastly, the brokerage firm Century Realtors is a new entrant in the local real estate industry and is operational with its astute buying, selling, and leasing of commercial and residential properties.
What are the challenges you perceive in your field of business and how are you planning to meet them?
The market in which Century Financial operates is a sensitive arena and is correlated positively with the global financial market, local investor sentiment, and macroeconomic factors. Behind every right decision, there lies three prime factors. They are meticulous planning, strong evaluation, and impeccable execution of the various attributes that are impacting the financial market movements.
In the last three decades of service, we have continuously been rewarded by our clients with trust, customer loyalty, and a strong word of mouth about Century’s credibility and service excellence.
The financial market is dynamic, and it shifts based on investor behaviour and investment trends such as acceptability towards new technologies, maintaining a modern investment perspective, and the introduction of new methodologies such as blockchain, cryptos, NFTs, Metaverse, etc.
I feel a perspective on three things will go a long way in setting a long term growth strategy. This includes providing supreme customer experience, where we keep our customers at the centre of everything we do; Future readiness by adapting new business processes and technologies; and regular introduction of new financial products and investment strategies.
What is the growth trajectory you have charted for your organisation over the next five years?
Century Financial strongly believes in concrete growth in every endeavour it is engaged with. We can gauge the gradual shift in investor consumer behaviour towards a modern investment instrument that engages tech-based platforms and processes, and are committed to providing an immersive investment experience to our customers.
In this regard, we are coming up with Quantifier, a high-tech AI-ML-based trading algorithm to offer data-driven decisions. It is a platform offering a simplified interface for quant and strategy requirements for investors, and which also provides access to proprietary research strategies.
We are also planning a next-generation trading platform that will offer modern investment products to our existing client base as well as newly introduced investors. If we talk of some of the most prominent inclusions of latest financial products for this region they would include the addition of ESG and sharia-compliant products in our portfolio.
