David Ferrall catches up with The Financial Standard

Vol 21, No 20: After finishing high school, David Ferrall enrolled at the University of Tasmania, but decided to quit after three months. “I worked as a photographer for a newspaper at a creative studio in Tasmania. That didn’t last very long, so I went travelling for a couple of years. I sailed around the world delivering yachts. Starting from Darwin to South Africa, around to Brazil, up to the Caribbean, then across to the UK before settling for a while in the south of France,” he says.

Ferrall was living the dream. But it was short lived. One day, while in the south of France working on boats, he looks up to see his father, handing down an ultimatum: “I think it’s time you came back home and got a real job. Working on boats and sailing around the world is not a real job.” “Your flight is booked for tomorrow,” his dad said. “But first you have to go back to Tasmania, pick up a car, put it on the ferry, drive up to Sydney and then start working the following Monday.”

In mid-1985, Ferrall began working as a phone clerk or a “runner” on the old open-outcry trading floor of the stock exchange, the days of old when orders were communicated over the phone and cumbersome paper trails were made. His boss was none other than Rene Rivkin.

Read the full article here.

We do need to make one small correction to this printed article. FinClear actually clears and settles $360 billion transactions each year (not $60 billion). We had to pop that in – it’s something we are very proud of.