Cobalt, the foreign exchange (forex) post-trade infrastructure, has announced this Tuesday that Citi bank is the latest market player to support its infrastructure, and intends to go live on its infrastructure for bilateral trading.
Specifically, Citi has invested in and backed the technology firm. The partnership is similar to Cobalt’s partnerships with Deutsche Bank, XTX Markets, and Saxo Bank, which were announced in September of last year, as Finance Magnates reported.
Cobalt to announce further industry partnerships
Furthermore, the company revealed that it is in talks with a number of banks, with more signings due to be announced in the coming weeks.
Commenting on the partnership, Itay Tuchman, Citi’s Global Head of FX Trading, said in the statement: “Cobalt’s platform will help make the processing of FX trades more efficient and automated, supporting dynamic distribution and optimisation of credit lines and delivering benefits to the control environment.”
Cobalt is led by veterans in the Forex space Adrian Patten and former Traiana Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and head of Prime Brokerage at Deutsche and Citi, Andy Coyne.
The purpose of Cobalt is to redesign post-trade forex infrastructure and processes. To do this, the system’s automated technology matches all versions of a trade into one ‘trusted copy.’
By creating a trusted copy, the infrastructure generates one unchangeable data set of FX transactions. This is at odds with the current industry practice, where a single trade today creates multiple records for all parties. This leaves more room for error and inconsistencies throughout lifecycle events.
When Cobalt launched its post-trade infrastructure last year, it did so with the help of more than 20 leading financial institutions. At the time, many of these companies were being onboarded to the platform.
Darren Coote, the CEO of Cobalt, added: “We are pleased to welcome Citi, one of the largest bilateral FX trading participants. They join major FX institutions, including PBs and the largest non-bank Liquidity provider, among others, showing Cobalt’s breadth of offering across the FX market”
