Standard Chartered goes live with Cobalt brokerage services

By Sunniva Kolostyak

The foreign-exchange and digital asset infrastructure provider Cobalt has partnered with Standard Chartered to provide its platform for Prime Brokerage and Executing Broking.

Standard Chartered has been a Cobalt client since February 2020 and invested in the FinTech in July. In the announcement, the two firms said the go-live with brokerage services was the natural next step.

Cobalt stated that credit management, in prime brokerage businesses in particular, has been ‘widely mismanaged in recent years, and major banks are now looking to improve their profit margins and manage credit risk correctly. Available across all market segments, Cobalt clients can monitor their portfolio of positions and risk across all currencies.

This announcement follows the news that Cobalt expanded its business to now include digital assets and is already connecting to the leading digital exchanges, offering full credit and ledger services.

Over the last few years, Cobalt has designed and built a secure 24/7 middle-office platform which it is delivering for some of the FX and crypto market’s largest participants, including Standard Chartered.

Andy Coyne, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Cobalt, commented: “This past year has shown that the need for fully automated solutions is essential. Institutions have been hampered by antiquated services across their middle office for some time now and they are beginning to wake up to the realisation of the time and cost burden this represents.”

“Since signing as a client in February 2020, Standard Chartered’s presence in the Cobalt network has been of great value to our business both as a client and an investor. With them now live on the platform for both prime brokerage and executing brokerage business, this demonstrates the versatility of Cobalt’s platform and how it can be applied for all market participants. As we enter the next stage of Cobalt’s investment and product journey, we look forward to having an institution of Standard Chartered size as key proponent of our system.”