Pulling together to create a Future Investment Market – Konstantin Stetsenko, ICU Founding Partner.

Exclusive interview with a founding partner of ICU investment group, Konstantin Stetsenko, by the agency "Interfax-Ukraine" 

Text: Dmytro Koshovyy 

- ICU today is among four or five financial companies and banks that provide retail customers with the ability to buy government bonds via the government mobile app "Diia". How important is retail to you, especially during wartime?

-  ICU started a retail business in 2018‒2019 when we realised that this segment had become global, and our market needed to catch up. We started by building a technological foundation: automation of the back office, creation of internal infrastructure, and an IT platform to serve retail customers. Previously, we were a wholesale broker. Our clients were banks, corporations, insurance companies, and non-residents. To enter this new market, we strove to create a state-of-the-art investment application for retail customers where they could transact business on the phone. But this was just the tip of the iceberg. For the last several years, we have been investing in and building out technologies to support this business.

Before the war, we had many plans for what we wanted to do in retail: provide Ukrainian individuals access to international markets, introduce new types of securities to the market, and so on. Then, the Ukrainian capital markets comprised government bonds, corporate bonds, and stocks. A market began to develop in the securities of foreign companies, such as Apple and Tesla, which Ukraine participated in through the "link." We even created a Eurobond Fund and an Index Fund, but this market has gradually become saturated.

After currency liberalization was enacted and e-limits were introduced, it became possible for Ukrainian retail