Equiti Establishes Bangalore Tech Center as Brokers Recruit Indian Engineering Talent
- The Dubai-headquartered brokerage firm announced that its new facility will focus on cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, engineering, data, and artificial intelligence.
- India's highly skilled engineering workforce continues to attract trading companies, even as local regulations prevent offshore contract-for-difference (CFD) brokers from acquiring retail clients within the country.
Equiti Group has launched a new technology center in Bangalore, expanding its technical capabilities into India. The firm, primarily recognized for its brokerage operations in the Middle East, stated that the new hub will spearhead projects involving data analytics, artificial intelligence, engineering, cloud computing, and cybersecurity.
Prioritizing Tech Talent Over Customer Acquisition
Equiti’s entry into India is strictly focused on recruiting technical personnel rather than targeting local investors. Due to strict currency controls, CFDs exist in a regulatory gray area in India, making it nearly impossible for foreign brokers to legally onboard domestic retail clients. Consequently, several firms have retreated from the market. Equiti avoids this obstacle entirely by utilizing the region strictly as a talent pool.
According to the company, Bangalore offers valuable proximity to skilled software engineers, innovative startups, and academic research institutions. Equiti framed the expansion as part of an ongoing mission to develop AI-driven technology intended to democratize wealth access—a theme that aligns with its recent initiative to open a retail wealth fund to smaller-scale investors.
Bangalore Emerges as a Hub for Trading Infrastructure
Equiti is joining a growing movement of brokerages leveraging Indian technical expertise. For instance, Australian FX and CFD broker Axi previously established a product and technology office in Bangalore, employing roughly 30 people under a regional engineering director to tap into the city's highly regarded talent pool.
Other brokerages are pursuing similar technical talent across different regions. Deriv recently established a second location in Nicosia, Cyprus, with a specific focus on AI and trading systems recruitment. This competitive hiring environment has also impacted executive-level talent; amana recently hired a former Devexperts CTO, and CFI Financial appointed a new technology chief late last year to support its Gulf expansion.
Akshit Jain, Equiti’s Managing Director for India and Group Head of Development for Client Platforms, emphasized the strategic importance of the location, stating that Bangalore provides the firm with access to an exceptionally strong technology workforce. However, Equiti has not disclosed specific details regarding the scale of the expansion, omitting information on headcount projections, financial investment, or a timeline for full operational capacity.
Diversifying Beyond Traditional Brokerage Services
The establishment of this technology center aligns with Equiti’s broader strategy to evolve past its origins as a regional CFD broker. The company previously expanded into the digital payments space through its acquisition of Cloud Invest and has consistently added tech talent to its ranks, including recruiting a veteran Meta engineer to oversee its data and AI divisions.
Equiti currently holds regulatory licenses in multiple jurisdictions—including the UK, the UAE, and Cyprus—and operates brokerage, payment, and asset management divisions across the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia.