Our roundup covers a CTO for KX, a client for CQG, a CRO for Siepe, a partnership for Finastra & NICE Actimize, and a head of payments for SETL from Ripple.
Acquisition Expected to Close by June 30
The London-based Capco, a financial services and technology consultancy, will become part of Wipro Ltd., the Bangalore-based global IT and services provider as a result of a $1.45 billion acquisition.
The agreement will enable Wipro to offer “digital, consulting and technology services to financial institutions in the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific,” officials say. “Capco’s clients include many marquee names in the global financial services industry.”
If approved by authorities, the acquisition will combine “Wipro’s capabilities in strategic design, digital transformation, cloud, cybersecurity, IT and operations services with Capco’s domain and consulting strength,” according to the official announcement.
“Wipro and Capco share complimentary business models and core guiding values, and I am certain that our new Capco colleagues will be proud to call Wipro home,” says Thierry Delaporte, CEO and managing director of Wipro Limited, in a prepared statement.
For more than 20 years, Capco has focused on the banking, capital markets, wealth, asset management and insurance sectors, and has clients in the energy and commodities trading sector, officials say. Capco has more than 5,000 business and technology consultants based 30-plus global locations.
The acquisition is expected to close by June 30, 2021, officials say.
First Derivative’s Kx Picks a CTO
Eric Raab
First Derivatives plc, also known as FD, reports the appointment of Eric Raab as chief technology officer (CTO) for Kx Systems, the group’s analytics software business. Raab will report directly to Seamus Keating, FD’s CEO.
Raab will “have responsibility for research and development and the technology roadmap at Kx, with a focus on accelerating expansion of its platform across industries,” according to a statement.
He joins from Information Builders Inc., a data and analytics software company recently acquired by a privately held company specializing in data analytics, per the statement.
As CTO at Information Builders, Raab “oversaw and managed all technology projects within the firm including software research and development and quality assurance,” the FD statement adds.
CQG Technology Tapped for Future Crypto Exchange
Aquarius Financial Technologies Ltd., a trade matching technology provider, will be using the trading interfaces, infrastructure, and application programming interface (API) connectivity offerings from CQG for the launch of “an institutional-grade global cryptocurrency exchange,” slated for the third quarter of this year.
CQG makes front office solutions for traders, brokers, commercial hedgers, and exchanges. CQG will also provide Aquarius with access to “more than 45 tradable, global exchanges and more than 85 market data sources,” vendor officials say.
“We are soon to close our series A investment round at the end of March 2021, and this agreement marks another important milestone for Aquarius,” says Richard Lane, co-founder of Aquarius, in a prepared statement.
The Aquarius team of technologists and traders is based in Zurich and London “and draws on its team members’ former experience at Goldman Sachs and UBS,” officials add.
Siepe Appoints a Chief Revenue Officer
Charles Chien
Siepe, a provider of technology, data, and analytics, has named Charles Chien chief revenue officer (CRO). Chien is a senior executive with a 20-year track record in the capital markets industry, according to a prepared statement.
He will be responsible for Siepe’s “go-to-market strategy and [for] overseeing the sales and product teams on the software side of the business,” per the statement.
Prior to joining, Siepe was managing director, business technology at Canyon Partners, a hedge fund, where he “was responsible for technology strategy and development for all functions.”
Siepe’s statement notes that it added 22 employees in 2020 and recently completed its Series A funding round.
Finastra Offers Xceed via Cloud Platform
Financial technology provider Finastra will be offering the Xceed cloud-native financial crime platform from NICE Actimize to the Finastra customer base on the FusionFabric.cloud platform, vendor officials say.
The Xceed platform offers anti-money laundering (AML) and fraud solutions and is based upon artificial intelligence (A.I.) technology. The system offers real-time behavioral analytics and machine learning capabilities, officials say. “Xceed performs behavioral analytics across all digital payment channels and gathers insights into an omnichannel view,” officials say. The platform offers fraud and AML analysts a “comprehensive view of fraud and AML risk through Xceed’s unified case management system.”
SETL Hires from Ripple for Head of Payments
Marjan Delatinne
SETL, the London-based settlement and payments infrastructure provider, reports the appointment of Marjan Delatinne as head of payments. She has “overall responsibility for growing SETL’s payments business, alongside its market infrastructure and asset management offerings,” according to a statement.
Delatinne’s most recent post was at Ripple, where she was global head of banking, according to the SETL statement.
Previously, she “held senior business development roles at SWIFT, where she was responsible for the commercialization of large-scale projects both in securities and payments, namely Target 2 Securities and SWIFT gpi (Global Payments Innovation),” per the statement.
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