London fintech bolsters FX and digital assets trading capabilities via acquisition

United Fintech, an end-to-end solution for banking technology, has announced its acquisition of Cobalt, a provider of critical risk and data services to the FX and digital asset markets.

The acquisition elevates London based United Fintech’s position as a “leading” end-to-end solution connecting financial institutions with “innovative” fintechs to accelerate digital transformation.

This is United Fintech’s fifth acquisition since launching in 2020 and has rapidly scaled its team to 150 across New York, London and Singapore. The acquisition of Cobalt is in addition to the acquisitions of FairXchange, TTMZero, Athena Systems and NetDania; demonstrating the ability to scale and grow despite the slowdown in the fintech space.

Founded in 2015 and also based in London, Cobalt provides core shared ledger infrastructure for banks in foreign exchange trading and digital assets. The company’s platform leverages blockchain-derived concepts to create a single, shared view of every transaction and remove the need for reconciliation across silos and multiple systems.

This allows foreign exchange traders to reduce credit risk and cost efficiently. Cobalt’s current customer base includes top tier banks like Deutsche Bank, Citi Bank, Barclays, BNP, Natwest, ABN Amro and Standard Chartered Bank. Several banks including Citi and Standard Chartered were early investors in Cobalt.

United Fintech will onboard Cobalt, its clients and employees onto its platform while Cobalt will continue to operate as a standalone company under United Fintech.

United Fintech CEO and founder, Christian Frahm, will be appointed as the new Chairman of Cobalt and Cobalt’s co-founder & Chief Product Officer Andrew Coyne and CEO Darren Coote will continue to lead the business day to day.

Christian Frahm, founder and CEO, United Fintech, commented: “It is incredibly exciting to welcome some of the financial industry’s accomplished leaders to the United Fintech family.

“Cobalt is at the forefront of critical institutional trade infrastructure for foreign exchange and digital assets, leading the field in innovation that empowers banks to keep pace with the ever-evolving capital markets.”

Andrew Coyne, co-founder & chief product officer, Cobalt, added, “I am very happy that Cobalt is now part of the United Fintech family. They will help us accelerate shared infrastructure adoption for the benefit of all market participants. This will allow our clients to access markets more efficiently, with better control and lower cost.”

By Matthew Neville – Correspondent, Bdaily

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