Dealing.com’s Tajinder Virk on AI, Tokenisation and the Future of Global Investing - Interview

Mr. Tajinder Virk, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Finvasia Group and Dealing.com, speaks to Fintech News UAE about the UAE investment landscape, the story behind Dealing.com, and how AI and tokenisation are taking online investing from access to intelligent investing.

 1. Your career began on Wall Street managing complex hedge fund strategies. How did that experience influence the creation of Dealing.com?

Managing multi-billion-dollar arbitrage and derivatives portfolios taught me to view markets as interconnected systems. Institutional investors could access sophisticated infrastructure, multiple markets, and extensive information, while individual investors faced a very different experience. Geography, fragmented platforms and limited product availability often restricted participation. Dealing.com grew from a desire to narrow this divide and give individual investors a simpler route into global markets. The insight was simple: investors did not lack ambition; they lacked the infrastructure to act on it. Dealing.com is our attempt to bring institutional-grade breadth into an experience designed for individual investors.

 2. What specific problem convinced you that another investment platform was necessary?

Most investment applications provide access to only a fraction of the global investment universe. Someone seeking exposure to markets such as Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Germany, Singapore, the US and the UK could need several platforms and accounts. A shortage of opportunities was never the problem. Fragmented infrastructure stood between investors and those opportunities. Dealing.com was created to bring broader global market access into one platform. Today, Dealing.com brings together more than 70,000 investment opportunities across over 15 global markets, including more than 35,000 traditional instruments, 24,323 tokenised stocks and over 12,000 tokenised ETFs. The value lies not simply in the scale, but in enabling investors to discover, compare and manage opportunities across markets without building a portfolio through several disconnected providers.

 3. Why had the investment industry failed to close this access gap?

Investment platforms have traditionally developed around individual markets, licences or product categories. Many providers digitised the existing brokerage model without fundamentally redesigning the investor experience. Investors received faster interfaces, but the underlying fragmentation remained. The industry has largely focused on facilitating transactions rather than improving the complete investment journey. Dealing.com started with a different question: why should someone seeking a genuinely global portfolio need to manage multiple platforms, accounts and systems? Digitising a fragmented model does not remove fragmentation; it only makes each fragment faster. Dealing.com was designed around the investor's portfolio rather than the boundaries of a particular market or product category.

 4. Which early assumption changed once you began developing Dealing.com?

We initially believed broader market access would be enough to transform how people invested. Experience soon showed us that access was only one part of the challenge. A large selection has limited value when the surrounding experience is cluttered, confusing or designed to encourage constant activity. The presentation and organisation of investment opportunities matter as much as the number available. Simplicity, context and ease of navigation therefore became central to Dealing.com. Our objective expanded beyond opening more markets to helping investors approach those markets with greater focus and purpose. Dealing.com has to make global breadth understandable and usable, not merely display a large catalogue.

 5. What was the most difficult or defining decision during the platform's development?

The defining decision was choosing to build Dealing.com around the investor, rather than engagement for engagement's sake. Many digital platforms use rewards, frequent notifications, and constant prompts to keep users active. Such mechanisms may increase screen time, but greater activity does not necessarily deliver stronger investment outcomes. Dealing.com chose an investment-first model centred on thoughtful participation. We believe technology should give investors greater choice, better context and the confidence to make better investment decisions. For us, the more important question is whether the platform creates genuine value for the investor. A platform should earn trust through the quality of the decisions it enables, not the frequency of the transactions it generates, this perspective continues to shape Dealing.com today. It is not just about putting more opportunities in front of investors; it is about helping them understand those opportunities and decide what makes sense for their portfolio.

 6. How has building Dealing.com changed your personal philosophy of investing?

Investing has changed considerably over the past 30 to 50 years. The process was traditionally more deliberate: research an opportunity, discuss the merits, reach an informed decision, and allow time for the investment thesis to develop. FOMO, gamification, and constant market visibility have pushed many investors towards frequent reactions and short-term thinking. My perspective has become more firmly centred on discipline. Good investing should involve identifying the right opportunity, making a considered decision and having the patience to hold. Constantly checking markets or reacting to every price movement can distract investors from long-term objectives. Technology has made market information abundant, but abundance has not automatically produced better judgement. In many cases, it has produced more noise. I believe the real value of technology now is to reduce that noise, provide context and give an investor the confidence to act with purpose.

 7. How does this philosophy distinguish Dealing.com from conventional trading applications?

Disciplined investing becomes easier when investors can see and manage global opportunities through one connected experience. Dealing.com brings more than 70,000 investment opportunities across over 15 global markets into a single platform, reducing the need to navigate separate accounts, interfaces and systems.Investors can move from discovering an opportunity to analysing, executing and monitoring it within the same environment. Such continuity makes global participation simpler while providing a clearer view of how each decision fits within the wider portfolio. The investment industry has become very good at making transactions faster. Dealing.com is focused on making global investing more seamless, understandable and purposeful. We are helping investors see more of the global market and make better-informed decisions about where their capital belongs.

 8. How has the original vision evolved, and what do you ultimately want Dealing.com to become?

The original mission focused on solving fragmented market access. Our vision has since expanded towards rebuilding the investing experience around patience, global choice and long-term thinking. Technology should do more than make transactions faster or encourage frequent trading. A modern investment platform should remove structural barriers, organise opportunity and help investors act with greater conviction. My ambition is for Dealing.com to reconnect modern global market access with the discipline and thoughtful decision-making that successful investing has always required. Ultimately, Dealing.com should become the place where investors can build truly global portfolios without the complexity traditionally associated with global investing. If the first era of fintech was about digitised transactions, the next should be about improving the quality of investment decisions, and that is the role Dealing.com wants to play.

 9. Dealing.com holds a Guinness World Record for offering 24,323 tokenised stocks. Why does this recognition matter beyond the number?

Tokenisation can change how investors reach global opportunities. Traditional market access is often shaped by geography, separate financial systems and the infrastructure available through a particular provider. Tokenisation creates a regulated digital pathway through which a broader range of opportunities can be brought into one investment environment. For investors, the practical benefit is greater choice without the need to navigate multiple disconnected platforms. Tokenised assets can be discovered, assessed and managed alongside traditional instruments, giving investors a more connected view of the global market and their overall portfolio. Dealing.com’s Guinness World Record demonstrates the scale at which this model can operate. The real significance, however, lies in moving tokenisation beyond a technology concept and showing how it can improve market access in practice. Long-term adoption will depend on transparency, clearly defined investor rights, regulatory safeguards and confidence in the underlying infrastructure.

10. How is Dealing.com responding to the expectations of investors in the UAE?

UAE investors tend to think globally. Many are digitally confident, familiar with several asset classes and unwilling to manage multiple platforms simply to build a diversified portfolio. Dealing.com responds by bringing stocks, ETFs, tokenised assets, currencies, commodities, indices and other opportunities from more than 15 global markets into one platform. Our approach goes beyond offering a large product range. Investors can test ideas through a free demo account, study markets using advanced charts and indicators, apply different order strategies and use AI-powered insights to better understand how an investment decision may affect the wider portfolio. The aim is to connect discovery, analysis, execution, and portfolio tracking without creating unnecessary complexity or encouraging activity for its own sake. Ultimately, UAE investors do not simply need more products but a clearer way to navigate global opportunity and we are trying to solve that problem through Dealing.com.