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Dubai, 7 September 2026 — Global Investments has entered into an alliance with Equiti, the multi-regulated brokerage group, giving the firm's clients direct access to self-directed trading accounts across forex, indices, commodities and shares.
The arrangement, effective immediately, allows clients to open an account with Equiti online and trade on the MetaTrader platforms independently, alongside the long-term portfolios Global Investments builds and manages for them.
It marks the first occasion in the firm's thirty-year history on which it has extended into self-directed trading, and it came about, its chairman says, because clients had been asking for a good while.
"We had declined to be of use at the moment it mattered"
"For three decades our work has sat at quite the opposite end of the spectrum from short-term trading," said Neil A Robbirt, Founder and Chairman of Global Investments. "Pensions, structured products, multi-manager funds, cross-border planning — long-horizon by design, and deliberately unhurried. None of that has changed, and none of it is going to."
"Yet one request returned to us with some regularity. A client who already holds a carefully constructed portfolio would ask, quite separately, to act upon a short-term view in a currency, or to hedge an exposure they already carried, or simply to trade their own ideas without routing every decision through an adviser. It is an entirely reasonable thing to want. It is also not what we do."
"For years our answer was to explain why we did not offer such a thing, and then to leave the client to find a broker unaided — in a market where the loudest advertiser tends to prevail, and where the distinction between a properly regulated group and an offshore brand with an accomplished landing page is not readily apparent to anyone who is not a specialist. The client would generally proceed in any event; we had simply declined to be of use at the moment it mattered. On reflection that struck me as a failure of duty rather than a display of prudence."
The firm assessed a number of brokers over several months before selecting Equiti.
An introduction to Equiti
Equiti is a brokerage group with roots stretching back over fifteen years, operating today through separately regulated companies across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It is not a white-label of another firm's technology, and it does not run its global business on a single permissive licence — a distinction that carried weight in the selection.
What it offers. Equiti provides execution-only access to a broad multi-asset range: foreign exchange, global indices, commodities including energy and precious metals, single-stock and ETF contracts, and regional instruments such as MENA equities. Clients trade on MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 — the platforms most active traders already know — with web and mobile access alongside desktop. Accounts can be funded in a range of currencies, including dirhams for clients in the UAE.
Where it operates. The group runs businesses across four continents, including in Jordan, where it is registered with the Jordan Securities Commission, and in Kenya, where its subsidiary is licensed by the Capital Markets Authority. That regional presence matters to a client base spread across the Gulf, Europe, Africa and Asia: support is provided in local hours and in several languages, and account funding does not always have to route through a single jurisdiction.
How it is regulated. Two of the group's companies are relevant to Global Investments clients, and which one holds an account is determined by where the client lives.
Clients outside the UAE are onboarded by Equiti Brokerage (Seychelles) Limited, regulated by the Financial Services Authority of Seychelles. UAE residents are onboarded by Equiti Securities Currencies Brokers LLC, regulated by the Capital Market Authority of the UAE — the body formerly known as the SCA — both as a trading broker for over-the-counter derivatives and currencies, and as a broker for arrangement and advice.
Beyond those, the wider group operates entities authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, serving professional clients and eligible counterparties. Those arms form no part of this arrangement, but their existence was material to the assessment.
"That breadth of regulation is the substantive point," Robbirt said. "A group which has submitted itself to the Financial Conduct Authority and to CySEC for its institutional business is operating under an altogether different order of scrutiny from a brand holding a single licence in a single jurisdiction. It does not render trading safe — nothing renders trading safe — but it tells you a great deal about the counterparty with whom you are dealing."
What it means for clients
Clients can now open an Equiti account directly, online, in a few minutes. There is nothing to arrange with Global Investments first and no adviser to wait for: registration, identity checks and funding all take place on Equiti's own portal.
Three account types are available, differing principally in how the broker is paid — through the spread, or through a lower spread plus a commission per lot traded. A free demonstration account funded with simulated money is also available, and the firm recommends it to anyone who has not traded leveraged products before.
Full terms for each account type, the regulatory position of both entities and Equiti's own risk disclosures are set out on the trading accounts pages, with individual pages for the Classic, Standard and Premier accounts.
The boundaries, stated plainly
Robbirt was equally candid about the limits of the arrangement.
"There are three things clients ought to know, and I would very much rather say them plainly at the outset than have them discovered later. We are paid by Equiti for the introduction; it costs the client nothing additional and alters none of the terms otherwise available to them. We and Equiti are separate and unaffiliated companies — we are not their agent, and we cannot act on their behalf. And a client who opens an account becomes Equiti's client rather than ours: their money and their positions sit with Equiti, under Equiti's regulator."
"The last of those matters most of all. This is not an advisory service. Equiti is execution-only, and our own involvement is execution-only in the most literal sense — which is to say that there is none. We shall not be watching anyone's positions, nor offering a view upon a trade."
He was no less forthright about whom the arrangement is likely to suit.
"These are leveraged instruments, and losses may exceed the amount deposited. That is a materially graver risk than attaches to almost anything else we arrange, where the worst outcome is the loss of what one put in. If a client is building a retirement fund, or the money has work to do within three years, this is emphatically not for them, and we shall say so. It suits someone who already understands leveraged trading and is employing capital that is genuinely surplus to their plans. Anyone uncertain which description fits them should telephone us before opening anything at all."
Availability
The arrangement is live now. Clients and prospective clients can compare the account types and open an account through the trading accounts section of the Global Investments website.
Global Investments says the alliance does not signal a change of emphasis, and that the firm will continue to focus on what it has always done — long-horizon planning for internationally mobile families. It closes a gap clients had identified themselves, with a counterparty the firm was prepared to name.
About Global Investments
Global Investments has advised internationally mobile clients since 1994 on international investments, pensions, protection, wealth expatriation, and citizenship and residence planning. Regulated services are provided through the authorised entities set out on the firm's regulatory page.
About Equiti
Equiti is a brokerage group operating through separately regulated companies across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, offering execution-only access to foreign exchange, indices, commodities, shares and other instruments on the MetaTrader platforms.
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Risk Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute financial, legal or tax advice, a personal recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any investment. Rules, prices and regulations change; verify current requirements with a qualified adviser before acting. Global Investments is not authorised or regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority. Regulated services are provided through the authorised entities set out on our regulatory page. Nothing here has been approved as a financial promotion by an authorised person, and UK residents should not treat it as one.