How XS.com is turning global visibility into lasting significance: Despina Iapona on brand strategy

As technology reshapes financial services and products become increasingly comparable, brand is becoming less about what an institution says and more about what it represents. In this interview with FXStreet, Despina Iapona, Group Brand Director at XS.com, discusses what it takes to build a distinctive global financial brand—from trust, reputation and regional intelligence to the role of people, technology and institutional culture in creating lasting competitive advantage.

FXStreet: Despina, thank you for sitting down with us today. XS.com has been growing its presence across global markets at a particularly interesting time for financial services. As you look at how the industry is evolving, what stands out to you most?

Despina: Thank you for having me. We talk a great deal about how fintech is changing—technology, AI, regulation, access—but perhaps not enough about how people’s relationship with financial institutions is changing.

We have created extraordinary access, but access has also created abundance: more platforms, more information, more products, more choice. And when something becomes abundant, availability itself becomes less valuable.

So the question is no longer simply, “Can you give me access?” It becomes, “Why you?”

And “why you?” cannot be answered with another feature. It is answered through credibility, behaviour, expertise, cultural intelligence, people—and the choices an institution makes over time.

And perhaps that is the paradox: the more advanced finance becomes, the more valuable the human qualities behind it become.

FXStreet: You’ve described a shift from access itself to the question of “why you?” If products and technology are becoming easier to replicate, what does it take to build a leading financial institution—and a strong brand—in 2026?

Despina: Leadership begins when an organisation stops defining itself purely by what it sells and becomes clear about what it stands for.

Products evolve. Technology advances. Competitive advantages that once took years to build can now be replicated remarkably quickly. What compounds over time is something less tangible, but ultimately more powerful: what the organisation stands for—its standards, culture, judgment, expertise, relationships and reputation.

And none of that is built through communication alone. Every decision leaves a signal. The markets you enter, the people you put forward, the partnerships you choose, the experience you create, the standards you protect—and perhaps most revealingly, the opportunities you are prepared to walk away from.

Collectively, those signals teach the market how to understand you.

This is where I think we often misunderstand brand. Brand does not create the organisation; it exposes it.

And that is why transparency inside the organisation matters so much. The more transparently an organisation operates, the more naturally and authentically it can be communicated externally.

That is why the strongest financial brands are not necessarily the institutions that communicate the most or the loudest. They are the ones where what is believed internally, what is communicated externally, and what people actually experience are fundamentally aligned.

FXStreet: If a strong brand is ultimately an expression of the institution behind it, how does a financial institution develop a distinctive voice in a sector where trust, innovation and transparency are already expected?

Despina: I believe distinction increasingly lies not in the language an institution uses to describe itself, but in the evidence it creates around that language.

Trust, innovation and transparency remain fundamental, but they are no longer sufficient as statements. Their value lies in how they are translated into the broker itself.

Being a global leader, for example, should not mean applying one strategy uniformly across every market. Its strength lies in having a clear global identity while possessing the regional intelligence to understand that markets are fundamentally different. Regulation, culture, client expectations, communication and even the way credibility is established can vary significantly from one region to another.

For me, the architecture is therefore one global brand supported by regional expertise, with strategies that respond to the realities of each market. The global umbrella creates coherence; regional intelligence creates relevance.

FXStreet: You make an important distinction between communicating qualities such as trust and actually creating evidence of them. What does credibility look like in practice in financial services today?

Despina: Consistency.

Regulation is fundamental. At XS.com, operating under eight regulatory frameworks is significant not simply because of the number, but because of what sits behind it: governance, compliance structures, reporting requirements, internal controls and operational discipline. That is an important indicator in itself, but credibility should not stop there.

Credibility becomes tangible in the everyday workings of an organisation: how securely data is protected, the resilience of the trading infrastructure, the quality of execution, the efficiency of deposits and withdrawals, and the expertise of the people clients and partners interact with.

But I think the real test often comes when the client is facing uncertainty. During significant market volatility, for example, what do you do as a broker when a client may not fully understand what is happening? How quickly do you communicate? How transparent are you about what is happening, and what steps do you take to reinforce the confidence the client has already placed in you?

Those moments matter because trust is earned through experience. And it is often in moments of uncertainty that a broker has the greatest opportunity to demonstrate what that trust means in practice.

That is also how long-term relationships are built, by the way—not through a single interaction, but through a series of moments in which the client experiences consistency, transparency and responsibility.

Ultimately, it is not only about being trusted at the point when someone chooses you. It is about continually earning that trust and giving people a reason to choose you again and again.

FXStreet: That consistency becomes more complex when an institution operates globally. XS.com is present across markets with very different cultures and expectations—how do you maintain a strong global identity without either diluting it or imposing uniformity?

Despina: By being very clear about what can change and what cannot.

Global organisations sometimes become generic precisely because they are too afraid of cultural variation. They search for language and ideas safe enough to work everywhere and eventually create something that means very little anywhere.

I prefer coherence over uniformity.

The question is not, “How do we make every market communicate identically?” It is, “What must remain true about XS.com in every market?”

Once that is clear, expression can adapt without changing the character of the institution.

FXStreet: You’ve spoken about the importance of regional intelligence within that global identity. What has working across different markets and cultures taught you personally about how trust and credibility are built?

Despina: To listen before communicating.

Trust is expressed differently across cultures. In some markets, institutional credentials carry enormous weight. In others, relationships and visible leadership are particularly important. Some audiences respond strongly to expertise; others place greater importance on accessibility and proximity.

That is why regional teams should not simply execute global strategy. They should influence it.

Sometimes the most valuable ideas do not travel from headquarters to the regions. They travel in the opposite direction.

FXStreet: That emphasis on understanding people is interesting at a time when financial services are becoming increasingly digital. As technology and AI take on more of the client experience, why should people still care about the humans behind an institution?

Despina: Because technology can deliver a transaction, but it cannot carry institutional accountability by itself.

We have spent years removing human intervention from financial experiences in the name of efficiency, and AI will accelerate that further. I think that creates an interesting countertrend.

When technology becomes ubiquitous, humanity becomes scarce. And scarcity creates value.

The people behind an institution may therefore become more important as technology improves—not because clients necessarily want more human intervention, but because they want to know there is expertise, judgment and accountability behind the interface.

At XS.com, we often refer to our people as our “X factor.” Technology gives a global institution reach. People give it character and relevance.

FXStreet: So, if technology shapes the experience but people, behaviour and judgment shape the institution behind it, how do you know whether the market is actually seeing XS.com in the way you intend?

Despina: I’m not convinced complete alignment should even be the objective.

If you define five words you want people to associate with you and then measure whether they repeat those words back, you risk creating an echo chamber rather than truly understanding your reputation.

I’m more interested in patterns. What do people say about us when we are not in the room? Why does a partner choose us? Why does someone not choose us? What do employees say about the organisation? And what do different markets understand differently about XS.com?

We have seen organisations lose part of their essence precisely because they become too focused on communicating the same message repeatedly. The moment you stop listening and start only declaring who you are, you create a gap between identity and perception—and that is where reputational risk begins.

Financial services is a dynamic industry, and perception is equally dynamic. Listening is not simply about protecting reputation; it is also how you identify opportunity. It allows you to understand changing expectations, emerging needs and the associations people are naturally forming with your organisation.

The contradictions can sometimes be more valuable than the compliments. They tell you where perception is shifting, where expectations are changing and where there may be something you have not yet understood.

FXStreet: Much of what you’ve described—culture, relationships, institutional knowledge and confidence—ultimately contributes to reputation. How do you think about the actual value of reputation to a financial institution?

Despina: More than appears on a balance sheet.

But I think about reputation slightly differently. Reputation is memory.

Brand is what we put into the world. Experience is what happens when people encounter us. Reputation is what remains afterwards.

People remember how an institution behaved when circumstances were difficult. Partners remember how you behaved during negotiations. Employees remember whether the internal reality matched the external promise.

Those memories accumulate.

So reputation is not simply a communications asset. It is organisational memory held by other people.

FXStreet: That distinction between being seen, being remembered and actually mattering suggests that recognition alone is not enough. If you had to choose between making XS.com one of the best-known names in the industry and making it one of the most respected, which would you choose?

Despina: I would challenge the choice.

If you’re deeply respected by twelve people, you haven’t built a global institution. If you’re known by millions but mean nothing to them, you haven’t built one either.

The strategic question is sequencing.

First determine what you want the name to mean. Build evidence behind that meaning. Then scale recognition.

Awareness is an amplifier. Before turning up the volume, you need to know what you’re amplifying.

One of the reasons XS.com has made waves over the last few years is precisely because we have placed importance on what sits behind the name.

FXStreet: As an institution scales, is there anything it should never be prepared to compromise in pursuit of growth?

Despina: Compromise the things that made growth possible in the first place.

There will always be opportunities that make commercial sense in the short term but do not make institutional sense in the long term.

Knowing when to say no is as important as knowing when to move.

And this is where values become meaningful. Values are easy to articulate when they cost nothing. Their real significance appears when maintaining them requires you to give something up, often commercially.

Long-term institutions are defined not only by the opportunities they capture, but by the boundaries they choose to protect. It is often a mistake organisations make while growing.

FXStreet: That brings together many of the tensions we’ve discussed—scale and relevance, technology and humanity, visibility and substance, growth and identity. Looking ahead, what will distinguish the financial institutions that successfully navigate those tensions and lead the next era of global finance?

Despina: Their ability to manage contradictions intelligently.

Global scale without losing local understanding. Technology without losing humanity. Growth without losing identity. Innovation without compromising responsibility. Visibility without sacrificing substance.

As capabilities become increasingly comparable, the intangible qualities of an institution become more consequential, not less.

Technology can make an institution faster. Scale can make it bigger. Communication can make it visible.

But consistency between what an institution says, does and represents is what makes it significant.