However, despite these developments, the typical UK individual investor remains highly exposed to the UK, says Byrne, and while Barclays Stockbroker’s latest offer – to bring dealing prices down to £4.42 for as long as England remain in the international football tournament – is on the one hand a bit of fun to support the sporting fiesta, it is also supposed to encourage investors to diversify internationally and think about emerging markets.

“My perfect group would be if we were playing China, Turkey and Brazil,” Byrne told this publication in a recent interview.

While the attractive growth and savings levels of emerging markets are so frequently stated they scarcely need mentioning, there will also be downs with these markets, says Byrne. With this said, there is a seminal shift towards emerging markets that is happening on an economic level, and needs to take place in terms of investment and asset allocation.

“One of the big dilemmas investors face is, how do you get exposure to these markets?” he said.

When investors are less familiar with the markets they are operating in, they don’t necessarily know which company boards to trust, or how reliable dividends are, Byrne continued. “And an investor needs to go in with a certain level of comfort – that must be an essential feature of how you get the exposure.”

Exchange traded funds

“Exchange traded funds usually offer a well-diversified collated group of stocks; whenever you’re talking about emerging markets you need to be talking about ETF or funds, you’ve got to be talking about collective vehicles,” he said.

There are also a growing number of passive funds which give exposure to commodities . And although these represent a small part of the average retail investor’s portfolio, they are gaining popularity as a way of getting exposure to asset classes previously hard to reach for smaller investors, says Byrne.

What is more, exchange traded investments are used by all kinds of traders: “While ‘traditional’ investors are using ETFs in a buy and hold strategy, active, high-volume traders are using them to move around the market.”

“We’ve seen investment in iShares products triple in 12 months,” said Byrne, adding that these investments also offer tax advantages as there is no stamp duty payable.

Forex trading

Foreign currency trading, particularly, has seen a boom, says Byrne. He attributes this to the fact we are going through a massive rebalancing of global economies, and currencies essentially provide a way of playing these big global trends.

Another high-growth area the firm is seeing is spread-trading: “We’ve seen spread trading grow in absolute terms by 21 per cent since this time last year.”

Generally, individual investors are becoming much broader in their investments, in terms of what vehicles they use and which asset classes and markets they want to be exposed to. This is partly due to the financial crisis, as ETFs, spread trading and FX trades provide ways of playing the market volatility we’ve been experiencing over the last two years, he says.

Another trend Barclays Stockbrokers is seeing is the rise of female investors, and while Byrne is reluctant in any way to stereotype investors’ behaviour by gender, he says the firm is working on a microsite for female investors to suit their specific needs, and to garner more information on what these are.

But, he says, a key factor in transforming the investment landscape has been the technological revolution, with the explosion of the internet and, with it, information availability. This is evident in the fact that 95 per cent of all trades done through Barclays Stockbrokers are now done through its website.

“Retail investors have services that weren’t available to institutional investors a few years ago,” says Byrne – who moved to Barclays Stockbrokers after having been head of emerging market sales for EMEA at Barclays Capital, the group’s investment banking business.

“We’ve now got what was promised ten years ago,” he says, referring to the dotcom boom.

The linkages between the investment banking and stock-broking businesses are an essential part of the firm’s proposition, says Byrne, and this is evident in the way the research teams complement each other. And of course, for an individual investor wanting to look after his/her own money, accessible research is an essential tool.

“The City used to be very one-sided towards institutional investors, but now information has empowered individual investors.”