United Fintech’s latest acquisition Cobalt, which provides post-trade automation solutions for banks in foreign exchange trading and digital assets, has announced that it is “returning to its roots” and relaunching as CobaltFX. The company’s Digital Asset division will form a parallel “new venture” on the same platform in Q2.
Marc Levin will assumes the CEO responsibility of CobaltFX while continuing in his current role as Group COO in United Fintech, where he has been since soon after its launch in 2020.
Founder Andrew Coyne echoed the vision for the company’s strategic plans, adding that product innovation and growth acceleration will be key priorities as he continues with CobaltFX’s team on the new platform: “Together, we’re stronger than ever”.
Following its acquisition in December 2022 by United Fintech from previous owners Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, S&P Global, Singapore Exchange (“SGX”) and others, Cobalt said that it is adjusting to its new ownership and as part of being on-boarded onto United Fintech’s digital capital markets product platform, Cobalt is relaunched as CobaltFX; to focus 100% on Foreign Exchange (“FX”), thus back to “the company’s roots”, says ascending CobaltFX CEO Marc Levin.
Andrew Coyne, who himself has been onboarded as part of United Fintech and will continue with the CobaltFX team to focus on innovating and expanding the FX product, said:
“CobaltFX’s goal is to re-engineer the world of Foreign Exchange through a rock solid platform focusing on credit optimisation and post-trade FX. Dynamic Credit being the most important starting point. As part of United Fintech, we join four other partner companies, retaining our formal status as a partner company. There are a lot of synergies between the partner companies and United Fintech. Not only from a client and solution perspective, but from a visionary perspective; together, we’re stronger than ever.”
Impending Digital Asset spin-off in Q2
As the name suggests, CobaltFX will be solely concerned with the FX industry thus leaving the company’s Digital Asset (“DA”) division outside the product offering, however, not for long: CobaltFX’s ascending CEO Marc Levin states that rather than a “buy-up” of Cobalt, it’s a United Fintech “buy-in” into the growing DA space perceived as the next thing banks will want to get ahead of in order to stay on par and future-proof their models. Thus, a much anticipated United Fintech DA spin-off is impending with further details to be disclosed in Q2.
“We believe both opportunities are huge and should be pursued, but not under the same banner. While FX and DA are similar in many ways, and likely to merge in the future, the two industries are currently at very different maturity stages of their evolution, largely operating independently and therefore requiring different approaches to be successful on their own. Hence the spin-off of Cobalt’s DA product as part of a bigger United Fintech play in this area; we’re very excited to announce this later in Q2. Until then, I’m very pleased I get to join this adventure with Andy Coyne and Darren Coote”, says Marc Levin, who assumes the CEO responsibility of CobaltFX while continuing in his current role as Group COO in United Fintech where he has been since its launch in 2020 – today, a fintech super-consolidator having grown to service over 200 major banks and financial institutions across 5 platform companies with offices in 8 countries.
From company to product, with more resources
According to Andrew Coyne, the change of ownership is a strategic and important move to allow CobaltFX to become part of something bigger, citing United Fintech’s partner offering with focus on removing “administrative distractions”, such as HR, Finance and Legal, and at the same time bolt-on to their global distribution, sales and marketing as the key to success. As part of the relaunch, Darren Coote will take a bigger role in United Fintech, working with other partner companies, and from United Fintech, Elizabeth Missfeld will step in as COO and Erik Nordahl as CTO to deliver on CobaltFX’s vision and commitment to clients. Ultimately, this enables CobaltFX to focus on product development, client satisfaction and further innovate, reasons Coyne, who applauds the idea of more fintechs joining the United Fintech digital capital markets product platform in the year(s) to come:
“United Fintech has a unique model that does not seek to absorb the partner companies, but rather exploit all the product synergies for clients making it easier for banks and financial institutions to adopt multiple products through a single platform, allowing clients to adopt and select solutions, contracting with United Fintech directly. Thus if you’re a client of one of the products, you can more seamlessly license and implement other products, significantly reducing procurement processes and onboarding”, ends Andrew Coyne.
