About Kestutis Balciunas

Founder & Editor, Financial Expert Class

Kestutis Balciunas, founder of Financial Expert Class — European ETF and dividend investor

Who I am

Hey there — I am Kestutis Balciunas, a 37-year-old European investor, dedicated husband, and proud father to a curious young daughter. I run Financial Expert Class from Europe; the publishing entity behind it, Aurum Digital Marketing LTD, is registered in England & Wales, United Kingdom.

For more than 11 years, I have invested my own money through passive, UCITS-compliant ETFs and a growing dividend sleeve — the boring, long-horizon kind of investing that John Bogle popularised. My family-first goal is straightforward: build a sturdy enough portfolio to reach Financial Independence and (optionally) Retire Early — FIRE, and never let money become a taboo topic at our dinner table or yours.

This page exists so you know exactly who is writing every article you read here, what shaped my views, where my income comes from, and — just as importantly — what I am not. I am a self-taught retail investor, not a regulated financial adviser. The honesty about that boundary is, I think, the single most useful thing I can give you before you read another word.

The compressed timeline, kept deliberately honest — only the milestones I am certain of:

  • Around 2014/2015 — first ETF account. I opened my first brokerage account as a European retail investor and started monthly dollar-cost averaging into a broad world-equity UCITS ETF (the kind tracked on justETF). No spreadsheet, no plan beyond “buy the world index and do not panic.” It turns out that was already most of the job.
  • 2020 — COVID stress test. The March 2020 drawdown was my first real bear-market gut check. I did not sell. I kept the standing order running. That experience did more for my Bogleheads conviction than any book ever could.
  • 2022 — launched Financial Expert Class. After years of being fed US-centric advice as a European reader, I started this site to publish the resource I wished had existed when I opened my first ETF account — written by a European, for Europeans, using funds we can actually buy.
  • 2024 — launched the paid Substack. I launched getdividends.net as a paid Substack so that deeper portfolio walk-throughs and dividend research could fund the time they require.
  • 2026 — today. Still DCA-ing every month. Still boring. Still working.

None of those years contain a “100x in a week” story, because there isn’t one. That is the point.

How I invest

The approach is deliberately simple and has not materially changed in a decade: a passive core of broad, low-cost, world-equity UCITS ETFs bought by monthly standing order, plus a dividend sleeve of distributing UCITS funds that I research in depth on the paid Substack. No market timing, no stock-picking for alpha, no leverage, no derivatives. Rebalancing is rare and rule-driven; selling is rarer still. Crypto exists in my world only as a small, clearly-labelled speculative slice — never the foundation.

One honesty note: this page does not currently publish my exact holdings. When a holdings table appears here, it will come with dated account artefacts behind it — because an unverifiable holdings list is decoration, not disclosure. Until then, the funds I write about most (the VWCE/IWDA class of world trackers and the dividend UCITS covered in the dividend calendar) are the universe my own money lives in.

Brokers I actually use

When I review a broker on this site, it is because I have either opened an account with them myself or done deep, source-linked research on their public regulatory filings — the split is documented precisely in how I rate brokers. Here is my real, current line-up:

  • Freedom24 (CySEC-regulated, Cyprus / EU). Currently my primary European broker for dividend stocks and ETFs. Useful for EU residents who want straightforward access to US, EU, and Asian markets in one account. Regulator: Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).
  • Interactive Brokers (IBKR). Multi-jurisdictional, regulated by the SEC in the US, the FCA in the UK, and several others. My “serious infrastructure” account for larger positions, multi-currency holdings, and access to the widest range of UCITS ETFs. Regulator references: SEC, FCA.
  • XTB (KNF-regulated, Poland). I have evaluated XTB primarily for their commission-free ETF and stock structure for smaller European portfolios. Regulator: Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego (KNF).
  • Trade Republic (BaFin-regulated, Germany). I opened a Trade Republic account to run a small monthly DCA savings plan into UCITS ETFs — the German Sparplan model in practice. It is my go-to for evaluating mobile-first neobroker UX from a real user’s seat. Regulator: BaFin.
  • Nexo (researched, not core). I have researched Nexo extensively for the crypto-earn product, and I disclose it as an affiliate on this site, but I treat any crypto allocation as speculative and never the foundation of a portfolio. Crypto is not a UCITS ETF.

If a broker is not on this list, I have not actually used it as a customer, and any review of it is desk research — the review will say so plainly.

What shaped my methodology

I am self-taught. That word matters. My investing worldview was built — slowly, sometimes painfully — by reading the following sources in roughly this order:

  • John C. Bogle — The Little Book of Common Sense Investing. The single book that rewired how I think about costs, indexing, and the futility of stock-picking for retail investors.
  • JL Collins — The Simple Path to Wealth. Made the Bogleheads philosophy emotionally accessible. The “F-You Money” framing is where my own FIRE motivation took root.
  • Lars Kroijer — Investing Demystified. Crucial for European investors, because Kroijer writes from a non-US perspective and is brutally honest about the edge most retail “experts” do not have.
  • The Bogleheads forum and r/eupersonalfinance — where I learned the European-specific edges: Irish-domiciled UCITS for US-dividend tax efficiency, distributing vs accumulating share classes, country-by-country tax wrappers.
  • The justETF database and ETF.com — daily reference tools for screening UCITS ETFs and reading the official KIDs/PRIIPs documents.
  • European educators — Finanzfluss (Germany) for German-market literacy, and PensionCraft (Ramin Nakisa, UK) for UK-EU crossover and portfolio-construction sanity checks.
  • Issuer factsheets and KIDs/PRIIPs disclosures from iShares, Vanguard, Amundi, Xtrackers, SPDR, Invesco, VanEck and WisdomTree. Before I write about a fund, I read its own legal documents, not a summary of them — for example the iShares UCITS KID library.

Where regulation is relevant, I check official EU sources directly — ESMA, BaFin, CySEC, the FCA, the KNF — rather than relying on a third party’s summary. The full working rules are written down in three standing methodology pages: how I rate brokers, how I compare ETFs, and how I compute tax examples.

My credentials, honestly

This is the section that matters most for a YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) topic, so I want to be unambiguous:

  • I am not a regulated financial adviser in Lithuania, the UK, or any other jurisdiction.
  • I am not a CFA charterholder, CFP, or chartered accountant.
  • I do not hold any investment management licence from the FCA, BaFin, CySEC, KNF, the Bank of Lithuania, or any other regulator.
  • I do not perform any FCA-regulated activity through this website or through Aurum Digital Marketing LTD.

What I am is a European retail investor with 11+ years of personal, self-directed, after-tax money on the line, using the same passive UCITS-ETF and dividend strategies I write about. I read primary sources, I cite them, and I show my reasoning. That track record — combined with full transparency about its limits — is the honest foundation of this site.

If your situation is complex (large lump sums, cross-border tax, inheritance, business sale, divorce, retirement drawdown), please speak to a licensed adviser in your country of tax residence. Nothing I publish replaces that conversation.

How this site makes money

I want this in the open, because how a publisher is paid changes how you should read them.

Financial Expert Class has two revenue streams, and only two:

  1. Paid Substack memberships at getdividends.net, where I publish deeper dividend research and portfolio walk-throughs for paying subscribers.
  2. Broker affiliate commissions from the five brokers named above (Freedom24, Interactive Brokers / IBKR, XTB, Trade Republic, Nexo). When you open an account through one of my links, I may receive a one-off referral fee. Your costs are not increased. I do not accept payment to alter a review’s verdict and I will recommend an unaffiliated broker over an affiliated one if it serves the reader better.

For the full mechanics, see my Affiliate Disclosure and my Editorial Process pages.

Articles I’m proud of

If you want to judge the work rather than the bio, start with these five — they show the site at its most useful:

Corrections I’ve made

I get things wrong sometimes, and I would rather show you where than pretend otherwise. Every material correction — a wrong rate, a stale fee, a promise the site itself failed to keep — is logged, dated and sourced on the public Corrections page. A visible Reviewed date on an article means a logged human re-verification of its figures happened on that date — no log entry, no badge. The full workflow lives on the Editorial Process page. If you spot an error anywhere on this site, email [email protected] with “Correction:” in the subject line — I read every one.

Where else you can find me

These are the only public profiles that are actually mine. If you see an account claiming to be me elsewhere — especially anything promising guaranteed returns, “signal groups,” or Telegram pump trading — it is not me. Please report it and email [email protected].

About Aurum Digital Marketing LTD

Financial Expert Class and the getdividends.net Substack are both operated by:

  • Legal name: Aurum Digital Marketing LTD
  • Trading as: Financial Expert Class
  • Country of registration: England & Wales, United Kingdom
  • Companies House number: 15203665
  • Registered office: Flat 18 Block N Peabody Buildings, Wild Street, London, England, WC2B 4BX
  • Incorporated: 11 October 2023
  • Public contact email: [email protected]
  • Sole business purpose: operating the Financial Expert Class educational website and the getdividends.net Substack publication.
  • UK ICO data-protection guidance we follow: ico.org.uk and EU-wide EDPB guidance for visitors in the EEA.

Aurum Digital Marketing LTD is a publishing entity. It is not an investment firm, not a fund manager, not an introducer for any unlicensed product, and it does not safeguard client money.

How to reach me

The best way to contact me is by email at [email protected]. I read every message personally and typically reply within 1–3 working days. For the full list of how to get in touch — including media, partnerships and corrections — please see the Contacts page and the Help & FAQ.

One ask: please do not email me for personalised investment advice, price predictions, or confirmation of trades you have already placed — I cannot give any of that responsibly (see the Terms & Conditions). For anything else — feedback, factual corrections, broker review requests, collaboration with publications, or just a hello from a fellow European DCA-er — I genuinely love to hear from readers.

Important risk disclaimer

Everything on Financial Expert Class is published for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute personalised financial, investment, tax or legal advice, and it should not be relied on as such. Investing in ETFs, stocks, dividend equities, crypto-assets or any other instrument involves risk — including the risk of losing some or all of the capital you invest. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

Before making any investment decision, you should consider whether the product is suitable for your personal circumstances and, where appropriate, consult a regulated financial adviser in your country of tax residence.

For the full legal framing, please read my Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, Affiliate Disclosure, and Editorial Process.

Thanks for reading. Now let’s go build something boring and durable, together.
— Kestutis

Selected research from Financial Expert Class

In-depth guides our readers are using right now:

Affiliate disclosure: some links in this article are affiliate links to brokers I have a relationship with. If you open an account through one, I may earn a commission — at no cost to you — and it never affects my assessment. See my full Affiliate Disclosure for how I keep editorial decisions independent.
Risk disclaimer: Investing always involves the risk of losing your capital. Past performance and predictions do not guarantee future results. Do your own research and consider consulting a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.