It is rare that a financial consulting firm establishes such an impressive portfolio in such a small amount of time. MAP S.Platis, established only six years ago, already has the prestigious role of advising one of Europe’s most financially stable countries, Cyprus. Their performance has been unquestionable in that time, providing such services to the financial services sector as consultancy, research  and executive training. Despite working in an industry which has faced much hardship over the past year, the firm continues to grow.

World Finance speaks to Dr. Stelios Platis, managing director of MAP S.Platis, about how they reached such a pinnacle point and what has made them so successful.

MAP S.Platis was established in 2003 and has grown rapidly over the years. What is the key to your success?

MAP S.Platis was established in anticipation of Cyprus’ entry into the European Union, by a team of professionals and financial services experts comprising, even back then, a total of more than 60 years of combined consulting experience in advising financial services institutions. The company quickly gained the reputation of a reliable service provider, providing unrivalled compliance support to both Banks and Investment Firms in the region.  I would say that our success has been based on reliability, consistency, transparency, speed and quality of responses and comprehensive support towards our clients in the financial sector.

Your company is quite unique in the fact that it offers a number of specific services for financial companies, as well as non-financial companies. How did you develop such a wide base of core skills?

Our core service proposition is to the financial services sector. This is where we concentrate and have specialised in. Given this specialisation, we have invested and developed all the necessary peripheral skills to support all the business needs of our clients. Now, supporting our Financial Services Advisory clients, we have a Business Support team, which provides company registration and audit services, a Research Centre, an Executive Training Centre, a Hedge Fund Registration team and Hedge Fund Support teams.

Has this range of abilities meant that you have found it easier to deal with clients’ needs?

The financial services sector is the toughest to grow in and survive. You are dealing with the best of the best, which are used to a very fast decision-making process, where mistakes have a specific price. It is always a challenge, but one we are happy, ready and very able to be taking on each time.

Your Advisory has been very successful and unique in many respects. What range of services do you offer to your clients?

We are currently the only consultancy firm in the region which is able to provide the spectrum of our advisory and support services to the financial sector. But what really makes us unique is the high level of our support and the response time to compliance queries; the specific areas for which we provide support, the different departments and teams within MAP S.Platis offer, across the European Union, on-site and on-line MiFID compliance support services, anti-money laundering support, internal audit services, operational and financial risk management, and capital adequacy support.

How has your Financial Services Advisory proposition (with reference to MiFID) been so successful and popular in the region?

As a company, we have spent and continue to spend many research and training hours to ensure that our Financial Services Advisory teams are always up-to-date with the developments in the sector. This includes in-house and external training, participation in conferences, internal templates and procedures designing and assessments, monitoring and evaluation of personnel. On many occasions, we even provided the standard for the local regulators. This, of course, would mean nothing without the successful track record to match it. In fact, it is this track record, and the successes of our clients, which are communicated from one existing client to a potential one, that drives our success.

What do you think about MiFID and do you think it has had a positive or negative effect on the global financial system?

It has definitely had a positive effect, overall.  It is still, however, very much a work-in-progress piece of legislation, with a number of serious and potentially dangerous gaps still remaining. The MiFID initiative, as an attempt to harmonise the EU investment services sector, is indeed an excellent one. Now, it remains to reach its goal in the multi-dimensional and increasingly complex and globalised universe that is the financial services sector.

Do you believe it has harmonised the EU framework and what are the challenges ahead?

Up to a level it has. You have on one hand the traditional financial services economies with a detailed version of MiFID implemented and the ability to handle an ever-changing and dynamic financial sector, and on the other, the new member States, with a great many challenges before their regulatory authorities, with Cyprus being somewhere in the middle. There is also the increasing risk of systemically important pan-European financial institutions, and the issue of burden-sharing in a crisis. Setting up the framework for a single EU Regulator should become a priority, or else the next financial crisis will have its roots in the European Union. In fact, the European Commission is now proposing the establishment of a three-pillar model for banking, financial markets and assurance supervision, whereby the three new European Supervisory Authorities would work together with national supervisory authorities to combine local expertise with an overarching perspective within a European System of Financial Supervisors.

Why is MAP S.Platis so successful in the area of investment firm registration in Cyprus?

In regards to Cyprus, since the implementation of the new EU legal framework, we have registered successfully, under MiFID, over 60 percent of all Investment Firms to-date. Based on our solid experience in the field, we have developed a unique and reliable, continuously updated set of procedures aimed at offering fast and value-for-money licensing services to our clients, based on the specific practices of local EU regulators. But it is not just speed and successful track-record. We offer comprehensive support and advice throughout the process, through our transparent and tested procedures, and the guidance and consulting of our expert Investment Firm Registration and Consulting teams. Having said that, however, Cyprus is not the only jurisdiction we are offering our services to. We have already expanded into other competitive MiFID jurisdictions in the European Union, such as Ireland and Malta.

An FX expert
FX investment firms registration in Cyprus has received a lot of attention, after MiFID. What was your role in this?
It is, in fact, due to the hard efforts of MAP S.Platis that today FX registration has received such an attention in Cyprus. Cyprus has been one of the first EU jurisdictions to have issued a number of “pure” FX Investment Firm licences under MiFID (in early 2008), all of them represented by MAP S.Platis, where the first three have received their licences in approximately three months from the submission of their respective application. For this, we undertook the role of the co-ordinator between, and advisor to, the Central Bank of Cyprus and the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission to assist both local regulators in understanding the specific provisions of MiFID that relate to non-deliverable currency trading.

Why do you think you remain the only firm to-date to have successfully registered FX investment firms in Cyprus, under MiFID?

The obvious reason is that we have been the first to have done it whilst it remains still a cumbersome and complicated process, fraught with obstacles for the less experienced. However, it is a process through which we have managed to build the biggest and most experienced team in the region researching and working on this subject. It is for this reason that even the local regulators, keep consulting with us on FX matters. Having said this, however, we are happy to share our experiences and knowledge, and we often do exactly this, through our executive seminars and training courses. We believe the market is big enough for everyone.

What support services for the FX industry does MAP S.Platis provide?

This is yet another area in which we are unique in the region: whether a simple compliance issue or full comprehensive and continuous compliance support, dealing with any changing legislation, or meeting any new regulatory requirement, our experts provide a full range of support services across the EU for any licensed FX Brokerage Firm. Apart from the registration and licensing services, our expert teams offer, amongst others, our MiFID compliance support (on-line or on-site support), capital adequacy support, risk management support, anti-money laundering support services, operational risk support, internal audit services, and, of course, employee training. All tailored for the FX industry.

Cyprus is emerging as a potential EU financial hub for the Middle East. Why is this?

In our view, this is due to a combination of factors, such as the presence of the most favourable tax regime in the EU, combined with the proximity of Cyprus to the Middle East, whilst being a full EU and Euro Zone member. This ensures passporting abilities of such financial services across the EU, from Cyprus. Also, as regards costs, in Cyprus the operating and licensing costs remain quite low, compared to other EU jurisdictions, whilst this is combined with the availability of highly skilled and relatively cheap multilingual labour.

Why is there such a focus in Cyprus on the retail FX industry?

With regards to the FX industry, in particular, the presence of quite a few licensed (as well as unlicensed still) retail FX brokerages operating from Cyprus has also played a significant role. Also, due to the efforts of MAP S.Platis, Cyprus has granted MiFID licenses for this activity very early in the process, where this is building a mounting demand. Given these, it is not hard to see why Cyprus is increasingly being considered as a very favourable business environment for the retail FX business.