In other news, Bloomberg & Elwood want a gateway, BNY Mellon will use Chainalysis, and IPC has a new partner for Europe.
Roger Bartlett Joins Coinbase
Roger Bartlett
Cryptocurrency exchange platform operator Coinbase Global, Inc. has hired a Goldman Sachs securities operations veteran Roger Bartlett to be its next vice president, global head of financial operations, according to media reports and Bartlett’s LinkedIn page.
Coinbase has also made clear that it wants to expand its employee roster by 2,000 people. The company went public via the Nasdaq exchange last year.
Bartlett, who joined Coinbase last month, served in many roles at Goldman Sachs, including managing director — global co-head of operations for global markets; managing director — global co-head of operations for equities; managing director — global head of prime services operations; and vice president — EMEA head of clearing operations. He worked at Goldman Sachs from December 2005 to February 2022, according to his LinkedIn page.
Bartlett will not be the only employee that Coinbase hires as L.J. Brock, chief people officer for Coinbase, declared in blog posting that the company will be adding 2,000 employees across product, engineering, and design in 2022.
“If we’re going to execute against the opportunity in front of us, we’re going to need more help to scale our existing products and build new ones. … We believe our industry is in its infancy and that building onramps for individuals to participate is critical to driving the next generation use case of crypto. We’re also expanding to include products that host user-generated content like NFTs, and we’re excited about our ambitious plans for the future of Coinbase Wallet, enhancing security, ease of use, and accessibility,” Brock says.
FTF News reached out to Coinbase and asked if Bartlett will be hiring to build out his team and whether there will be more hires for operations. However, there was no response from Coinbase.
Bloomberg & Elwood Readying Gateway to Digital Assets
The Asset and Investment Manager (AIM) buy-side order management system (OMS) from Bloomberg is being integrated with the cryptocurrency offerings of Elwood Technologies to create a “gateway for institutional access to digital assets,” officials say.
The integration is slated to be finished and available “for mutual clients of Elwood and Bloomberg AIM in Q2 2022,” vendor officials say.
“The integration combines Elwood’s institutional cryptocurrency trading capabilities with Bloomberg’s data, analytics, and workflow tools, enabling the financial institutions and investment managers on the AIM platform to capture and manage their crypto investments alongside the rest of their portfolio for a unified investment process,” officials say. “Elwood will adopt the Financial Instrument Global Identifier (FIGI) for crypto assets as the common identifier for the integration.”
“It has always been our goal to provide clients with the cutting-edge capabilities necessary to manage their entire investment portfolio in an integrated manner, and this increasingly includes alternative asset classes such as cryptocurrencies,” says Ian Peckett, global head of buy-side product at Bloomberg, in a prepared statement.
Bloomberg AIM is used by approximately 15,000 professionals at more than 900 client firms globally to manage more than $17 trillion in assets, vendor officials say.
The digital assets trading infrastructure of Elwood Technologies encompasses OMS/EMS/PMS platform-based low-latency connectivity to crypto exchanges via a single API, officials say.
BNY Mellon To Use Chainalysis Product Suite
The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BNY Mellon) will be using the cryptocurrency compliance software offerings of Chainalysis to bolster its risk management program as a way of developing cryptocurrency services for its clients, officials say.
BNY Mellon announced a year ago that it is readying “the industry’s first multi-asset digital custody and administration platform for traditional and digital assets. BNY Mellon plans to integrate the full Chainalysis compliance software suite to assess broader cryptocurrency trends and granular activity in support of its compliance and due diligence practices,” according to BNY Mellon.
“BNY Mellon enters the digital asset market as the most trusted asset servicer in the space,” says Caroline Butler, global head of custody, tax, and network management for BNY Mellon, in a prepared statement. “Working with Chainalysis and other leading fintech providers is foundational to our role as a trusted innovator and the extension of our capabilities into products that serve the growing cryptocurrency market.”
The Chainalysis risk management software suite includes Chainalysis KYT (Know Your Transaction), Reactor, and Kryptos, officials say.
“Chainalysis KYT performs continuous, real-time transaction monitoring for all cryptocurrency assets to detect patterns of high-risk activity. Chainalysis Reactor, the investigative tool, provides deeper due diligence into suspicious activity,” officials say. “Chainalysis Kryptos offers high-level insight into cryptocurrency services including transaction volumes, counterparties, and benchmarking so that financial institutions can develop effective compliance frameworks.”
Describing itself as a maker of a blockchain data platform, Chainalysis provides data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in more than 60 countries, officials say.
Drebbel Tapped to Sell IPC Connexus in Europe
IPC has named fintech sales company Drebbel Technology as the sales channel manager for IPC’s Connexus Cloud suite of products in “several important continental European markets,” officials say.
IPC, which makes communications and cloud connectivity solutions for trading, “has identified a unique window of opportunity to aggressively expand its presence in Europe with products that address the rapidly evolving financial marketplace, such as digital asset exchanges, surveillance platforms, and more, while continuing to support established participants in the trading community,” according to an official statement.
“Drebbel has an impressive track record of selling financial cloud, hosting, and compute-on-demand solutions across continental Europe,” says Alex Walker, director of sales network services EMEA, IPC, in a prepared statement.
Drebbel provides clients with prospection, sales, and long-term account management. Its client base consists of fintech start-ups, scale-ups, and established corporates on three continents, officials say.