When it comes to the retail investment options available in the market, one name has managed to achieve brand recognition to an impressive extent – Freedom Broker Armenia. We spoke to director Ovak Ovakimian about the company’s efforts to develop retail investment, educate the public, and shape this aspect of Armenia’s capital markets scene.
Text : Nazareth Seferian Photo : Freedom Broker Armenia
A couple of generations ago, most adults could look forward to a career serving one organization or company for several decades, and then retiring to enjoy the fruits of that labor. Today, virtually nobody expects their life to follow that trajectory, and the new dream is to achieve financial independence as early as possible. People in Armenia are increasingly beginning to imagine their money working for them while they sleep at night. It is no coincidence that the first solutions for everyday Armenians to move towards this financial independence came from a company called Freedom Broker Armenia. Part of the Freedom Holding Corporation (listed on Nasdaq: FRHC), the company delivers retail brokerage, investment consulting, underwriting, and a range of other services in the country.
But when they first launched operations in Armenia, they had to negotiate new terrain, a situation that often comes with unique challenges.
“The market was, in many respects, still taking shape,” says director Ovak Ovakimian, “One of the initial challenges was aligning our global infrastructure with the local regulatory environment. This required close and constructive dialogue with the Central Bank of Armenia to clarify and adapt certain legislative aspects around securities and brokerage services, ensuring that our operations met both international standards and local requirements.”
Freedom Broker had to localize the entire platform, which meant going beyond basic translation to making the product accessible and intuitive for first-time investors. The platform had to retain its technological robustness while providing a positive user experience for the Armenian customer. Most importantly, the company had to invest in financial literacy, investment awareness, and work with other stakeholders to expand the market.
Market readiness was the major challenge. Armenia’s investment market was still in its early stages, with limited awareness and understanding of financial instruments,
Ovak explains, “In that sense, our role extended beyond that of a traditional broker. We were not just entering a market, we were actively helping to build it.”
Freedom Broker Armenia is no longer the only player on the market, but they have the strategic advantage of being part of a recognized global entity. The added credibility matters, particularly in a market like Armenia, where trust in financial institutions is still developing. There is also a considerable amount of market intelligence that comes with this identity. “Our understanding of client behavior across different markets gives us a strong foundation when entering and developing new ones,” Ovak says, “Additionally, we are able to leverage centralized capabilities that would not be efficient to replicate locally, like research. Instead of building a large team of analysts in Armenia, we rely on a global network of highly skilled professionals covering multiple markets. This enables us to deliver high-quality insights on international markets to our clients in Armenia, while continuing to strengthen our expertise on the local market.” The company supplements this international intelligence with local experts, who continuously study client needs in Armenia and tailor Freedom Broker’s products, communication, and approach accordingly.
The company has invested considerable resources in educating the local market through the efforts of its Freedom Academy Armenia. “For us, financial literacy is not a side initiative, it’s essential for the development of the entire capital market. We’ve built a layered ecosystem rather than a single product,” Ovak says as he outlines the concept. The Academy has an open-access side, which consists of a YouTube video series called The Investments Digest, which turns global market movements into clear narratives, and podcasts or other short-form content featuring voices from the Armenian financial community. Then, there are the entry-level offerings, with an online course called Say Hello to Investments designed for people with zero background. From there, the journey becomes more structured, with advanced paid programs that focus on practical skills like how to analyze, make decisions, and operate in real markets, rather than just understand them in theory. The company organizes immersive experiences offline, with events and workshops designed to simulate real market thinking. There is also a community layer through Invest Lab, where participants are involved in a dialogue that facilitates further learning.
Freedom Academy Armenia has an intentionally broad focus when it comes to defining their ‘typical’ learner. “It can be a young professional, an entrepreneur, or someone with no financial background at all,” Ovak explains, “What unites them is not prior knowledge, but intent, the willingness to understand how money works and to take ownership of that process. Ultimately, the Academy is less about teaching finance as a discipline and more about normalizing it as a life skill.”
The Academy has grown impressively in recent years. At the end of 2024, only around 500 people had benefited from their programs, but now this number has now gone beyond 6850 individuals. Most of the learners are from Yerevan, which is not surprising, and there was an initial dominance of male participants. “We’re seeing a steady increase in female participation, particularly through online formats, and expanding into the regions is a clear priority,” Ovak says, “There is no single dominant age group, with even distribution across age groups, starting from around 25 years old.”
Freedom Academy Armenia manages to have a competitive advantage despite the availability of a range of investment educational material online through international universities and global platforms. “Where we differ is in our positioning. We are not purely an educational initiative, we are part of a brokerage ecosystem,” Ovak explains, “grounded in real market experience, built on a multi-asset, multi-market perspective. We also rely on a strong in-house analytical capability. Our team of analysts continuously generates insights that inform both our investment thinking and our educational approach. This allows us to go beyond theory and anchor our content in practical, experience-based knowledge.” Combined with insights into local investor behavior, financial literacy levels, and market dynamics, this enables Freedom Academy Armenia to design educational strategies that are both relevant and applicable in practice.
We are part of a brokerage ecosystem. Our content is grounded in real market experience, built on a multi-asset, multi-market perspective.
Another major advantage that the Academy offers is the Investing with a Mentor solution, which is designed to remove the two biggest barriers to entering the market—uncertainty and isolation. Each client works with a dedicated mentor who does not just make investment suggestions but explains the logic behind them, how decisions are made, what risks are involved, and what alternative scenarios look like. At the same time, the experience is supported by a broader team that handles the operational side, from onboarding and platform navigation to day-to-day questions. This allows the client to focus on decision-making rather than logistics. “At its core, it’s a guided journey. Clients are not placed in a purely educational environment, nor are they left alone with real capital, they move through both simultaneously,” Ovak says, “Over time, this creates a shift, from reliance on guidance to independent thinking. Regular communication is a key part of the process: market updates, portfolio discussions, and strategic adjustments ensure that the client remains engaged and informed. But perhaps most importantly, there is a constant sense of access, because the client is never left one-on-one with the market.” Eventually, first-time investors are transformed into professionals who understand how to navigate markets with confidence.
It is important to build a solid base of financial literacy and investment education in Armenia, given the continuing obsession with “get rich quick” schemes in many parts of the post-Soviet world, and beyond. The 2000s saw a public obsession with lotteries and some people in Armenia see betting as a “quick and easy” path to wealth these days. In such a setting, there are clear risks when one makes financial markets accessible without providing the necessary education that should come with it. “Democratization makes investing easier to enter, but not easier to understand, which is where the problem starts,” Ovak explains, “When you focus on outcome versus process, this is no longer investing. But we believe that literacy scales only when it’s embedded into the product, not placed next to it. The moment a client opens an app, they should understand what they are doing in real terms, what drives the price, what risks are involved, what realistic expectations look like. Once that is clear, behavior is accompanied by discipline.”
Freedom Broker Armenia also aims to spread more public awareness of the finance markets through its publication of Finansist, a quarterly investment and financial journal that is a pioneer in Armenia in terms of analytical depth and editorial rigor. The journal is distributed free of charge to ensure it reaches both experienced market participants and those who may have never previously engaged with investing. “In many cases, the entry point into financial markets begins not with an account, but with curiosity, and the publication is designed to trigger exactly that,” Ovak says, “Each issue includes a growing share of original content produced by our Armenia-based analytical team, with a specific focus on the domestic capital market and its evolving dynamics.” This work includes translating and localizing complex financial and economic material, which contributes to the development of professional vocabulary in Armenian. As new terms emerge and gain circulation, the language of finance itself is beginning to take shape locally, and this is often an overlooked but critical layer of market infrastructure. In addition to public access points, the journal is placed in universities, with a particular emphasis on reaching younger audiences. There is a clear long-term objective here – to build familiarity with financial markets early, and to position investment literacy as part of a broader intellectual framework.
Ovak sums up all this work in a single sentence, which reflects the impressive achievements of the company in a relatively brief period of time. “By focusing on education and long-term trust, we have contributed to the emergence of a new class of retail investors, supporting the gradual development of Armenia’s local capital market ecosystem,” he says.