United Fintech Acquires FairXchange

As a first transaction in a multi-stage acquisition towards full ownership, United Fintech has acquired a 25% stake in London-based FairXchange for an undisclosed amount in a transaction integrating the company, its products and employees onto the United Fintech digital platform. FairXchange founder and CEO Guy Hopkins will continue to lead the company as the designated trading analytics product on United Fintech’s platform.

Trading firms use FairXchange’s analytical tools to facilitate data-driven dialogue with their counterparties, bringing clarity and transparency to execution performance through the provision of independent data. United Fintech CEO Christian Frahm says FairXchange fits hand-in-glove with United Fintech’s strategy of acquiring capital markets software products ready for scaling and global roll-out on United Fintech’s platform.

“FairXchange’s business critical, data-driven product, Horizon, is already being used by an extensive client base including a number of global financial institutions, and with the onboarding to United Fintech’s platform, we look forward to enabling FairXchange to continue its growth journey and scale with us,” Frahm says. “As United Fintech will onboard the company’s clients and FairXchange will get an opportunity to grow within our clientele, this is a mutual win for both parties – and a milestone for United Fintech, completing its third transaction in just one year.”

Frahm stresses that the acquisition won’t have any impact on everyday business for FairXchange’s clients or employees, adding that ahead of the transaction, United Fintech showed Horizon to six major global banks, aligning it with their product roadmaps.

The deal is part of United Fintech’s strategy to complete multiple strategic acquisitions of ready-to-scale fintechs with proven capital markets products, positive cash flow and growth potential. It terms this a fintech “one-stop-shop” that global banks can benefit from. The ambition is to help big banks and financial institutions accelerate the implementation of innovative digital technology, and according to FairXchange’s founder and CEO, Guy Hopkins, United Fintech’s platform is the market’s most suitable candidate to fulfil that exact mission.

”FairXchange has seen rapid, exciting growth in recent years; however we are still a small team and as we scale up we recognise the importance of choosing the right partner to help us accelerate that growth,” he says. “From the first conversation, we knew United Fintech was the perfect fit; a compelling vision, an innovative business model and a very impressive management team with deep expertise in financial markets. We’re looking forward to joining the United Fintech platform, increasing our own reach while also contributing to the wider success of the group.”

“The City and Wall Street will see bigger disruption in the next 10 years than they have seen in the past 100 years,” argues Frahm. “The whole industry desperately needs to access the most innovative minds and products globally, but the onboarding at all bigger institutions is killing any chance of new products actually getting into the banks in the first place.

“We are born as a partner for banks to help them transition quickly from slow motion into this lightspeed world,” he continues. “The next 10 years is all about speed for the banks, and they no longer have the luxury to do it by themselves. Banks need partners. United FIntech unites founders of the most innovative fintech businesses globally and brings them to the big banks under one central umbrella – an innovation platform where banks feel comfortable taking risk on new products; so that they can faster and more seamlessly onboard new technology. The acquisition of FairXchange is a great example of doing exactly that.”