Rich Ricci, a former senior banker at Barclay’s who spent almost 20 years at the bank, has migrated over to the future of finance by joining freemarketFX, a fintech startup that offers currency exchange. The FT called the former head of Corporate and Investment Banking at Barclay’s a flamboyent key executive during the days of CEO Bob Diamond.
freemarketFX was launched in 2011 by another ex-banker type, Alex Hunn who was previously employed by Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. Hunn commented on Ricci joining his young company;
“We are thrilled to have Rich join the freemarket team. To have someone of his experience become actively involved in the company is a huge vote of confidence and further validates our business model and unique proposition.”
freemarket competes with traditional currency exchange operations that can be expensive. By migrating online, Freemarket can aggregate as many requests to exchange currencies and thus offer rates at mid-market. freemarket keeps just 0.2% of the transaction.
The report states that Ricci will be acting as Chairman of the firm and will help to expand the service to both corporate and individual customers.
Ricci, born in the US and schooled in Nebraska, has long lived in the UK. Following his departure from Barclay’s in 2013, QZ published an interesting writeup of anecdotes regarding Ricci’s past.