«We have been present in the Swiss financial market with three websites since 2009»
29.01.2021
Ms. Fassi, you are a very active media entrepreneur. Can you tell us something about your career?
After graduating in Business Administration from Luigi Bocconi University, I started my career as a financial market analyst and simultaneously attended a technical analysis course at SIAT in Milan. Subsequently, I was hired by Sviluppo Finanziaria as an equity market analyst and when this firm was acquired by ING Bank I became responsible for advising institutional investors. Additionally, at the same bank I established and managed the Italian government bond advisory office.
After a long series of work experiences in the field of finance and financial investments, in 1998 I decided to set up my own business and founded DMF, a firm specialized in writing, analysing and spreading financial information.
In 2001 I saw great potential in the new ETF products that were coming onto the market at that time, and so with my team we created ETFWorld.it, the first website totally dedicated to the world of ETFs. The site was created to address the needs of institutional investors looking for information and data on these instruments. Over the years ETFWorld has grown and since 2009 we have expanded the presence of the ETFWorld network across several European countries.
In 2009, in view of the demand for information on the bond, equity and certificates market from institutional investors, we decided to launch BondWorld.it and AdvisorWorld.it, followed by BondWorld.ch and AdvisorWorld.ch.
Each portal focuses on a specific topic and offers information tailored to the specific theme.
Wouldn’t one website be easier to manage?
Managing a single site would be easier, but we made a different choice from the start, as we decided to create three different portals focused on certain topics and dedicated to institutional investors. Our portals are like three institutional boutiques accessed by those who have a real interest in a particular instrument and everything related to it.
We have made it as easy as possible for the user to move from one portal to another so that they can easily explore the different topics of interest. This means that a visitor to ETFWorld, for example, will find the entry point to BondWorld and AdvisorWorld on the portal’s home page. This allows the visitor to easily read the latest news from these three different sites and to stay up to date with the latest news.
Besides Italy, your company is also active in Switzerland, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. That is very impressive. What do you specifically offer in all these countries?
We are present in five European countries, and in each of these we provide local language news, insights, analyses and interviews. This allows us to keep up to date with what is happening in the ETF world and to provide comprehensive information to institutional investors in those countries. We have seen over the years that each country has different characteristics and needs and we have structured the different portals according to the demand of each country.
This certainly costs a lot of money. How do you finance all these activities?
This is certainly a lot of work, in terms of investment, time and personnel, but I can say that we have found the right balance that allows us to continue this growth. We are able to offer a structured and differentiated communication proposal for each individual country, and this allows us to meet the needs of our clients by offering them different advertising alternatives.
What are your further goals for Switzerland in particular?
The Swiss market is an important market for us, which is why we have been present with three sites since 2009. This year we are celebrating our 12th year of presence in the Swiss market, which is rewarding us for our consistency and completeness of information.
Swiss investors are very demanding and attentive and for this reason with the three sites we cover most of their topics of interest via, for example, articles targeted to the Swiss finance community. Our goal is to make our sites increasingly responsive to the sophisticated demands of the Swiss financial market.
In conclusion, I can already share with you that we are planning to launch another service for Swiss institutional investors, a project that is in progress and which we will discuss in a press release in due course.
Link to disclaimer
Dr. Delia Maria Fassi is founder and CEO of DMF Srl. Before launching the company, she worked for Sviluppo Finanziaria as a stock market analyst from a fundamental point of view, to which she added an expertise in technical analysis. Subsequently, when ING Bank’s Milan branch acquired Sviluppo Finanziaria, she worked in the analysis of financial markets and then in consulting to institutions. At ING Bank, she created and managed the consulting office for institutions on Italian government bonds. She has a degree in Business Administration from Bocconi University and has followed two master’s in bond management at SDA Bocconi. She is also a chartered accountant and auditor.