TradingTech Insight Brief
United Fintech Secures Strategic Investment from Barclays and Appoints Bank to Board
United Fintech has secured a strategic investment from Barclays, adding the major UK bank to its shareholder base of leading global financial institutions. Barclays joins BNP Paribas, Citi, Danske Bank, and Standard Chartered, all of whom have invested within the past two years. As part of this new partnership, Barclays will join the United Fintech Board of Directors, reinforcing the collaboration between established banks and the fintech platform.
This investment follows a period of significant growth for United Fintech. In 2025, the company completed two acquisitions, expanding its portfolio to seven fintechs, and now operating with over 200 employees across 11 global offices. These recent developments aim to assist clients in modernising infrastructure and deploying AI-powered innovations securely through a single point of access.
Archax and TradingStack Partner to Support FIX Connectivity for Digital Assets
Archax, the regulated digital asset platform, are partnering with TradingStack.io to offer FIX access to cryptocurrencies and tokenised real-world assets (RWAs). This initiative allows traditional financial institutions to access Archax’s Primary and Secondary markets using the same connectivity, workflows, and messaging standards they already rely on for equities, FX, and derivatives. By utilising the industry-standard FIX protocol, the collaboration aims to significantly accelerate the onboarding process for institutional clients entering the digital asset space.
The integration is designed to reduce the complexity often associated with accessing digital markets, and to provide streamlined access to various assets, including tokenised funds, bonds, and commodities. The technology also aims to eliminate the need for custom development, thereby reducing integration risks and shortening go-live timelines from months to days, ensuring consistent message schemas and improved straight-through processing for institutions.
Kraken Selects Avelacom to Provide High-Performance Trading Connectivity
Avelacom has been chosen by Kraken to provide high-performance network connectivity, aiming to enhance execution quality for clients. Starting immediately, trading firms can access Kraken’s matching engine through Avelacom’s optimised low-latency routes. This integration enables institutions to receive real-time market data and execute orders rapidly, supporting latency-sensitive strategies such as multi-venue liquidity and cross-exchange arbitrage.
Avelacom operates a global network connecting financial centres across Europe, North America, APAC, and the Middle East. Specific routes, such as the London-Tokyo connection, deliver sub-138ms round-trip latency via fibre, while hybrid networks utilising wireless segments offer further speed advantages. The infrastructure connects leading traditional and crypto exchanges with 99.9% uptime and 24/7 support.
Publicis Sapient and Murex Deliver Treasury Transformation for Aldermore Bank
Publicis Sapient and Murex have announced the successful implementation of the MX.3 front-to-back-to-risk platform for Aldermore Bank. The UK specialist financial services provider undertook this initiative to replace its legacy systems with a modern, integrated, cloud-based treasury platform. The primary objectives were to enhance treasury efficiency and provide greater hedging options for risk management.
Publicis Sapient led the transformation, tasked with blueprinting the target operating model and defining a resilient SaaS-based architecture. Aldermore opted for MXGO, a specific MX.3 packaged solution designed to reduce complexity and total cost of ownership while allowing for rapid deployment. This SaaS-based model supports the bank’s evolving needs through broad functional coverage and seamless integration across treasury workflows, ensuring scalability and regulatory compliance.
Digital Asset Completes Second Round of Canton Network Transactions with Financial Consortium
Digital Asset, in collaboration with a consortium of leading financial institutions including Bank of America, Societe Generale, and Tradeweb, has successfully completed a second series of transactions on the Canton Network. This initiative builds upon the initial on-chain US Treasury financing pilot conducted in July. The latest activity involved five coordinated transactions, marking a significant step towards creating a scalable, continuous capital markets infrastructure. The working group has expanded to include new members such as Brale and M1X Global, alongside existing partners like Circle, Citadel Securities, and Virtu Financial.
This second round focused on the Canton Network’s Global Collateral Network, demonstrating critical advancements in digital asset utility. Key developments included the use of multiple stablecoins, specifically SBC and USDM1, to broaden liquidity sources. Notably, the transactions demonstrated the first instance of real-time collateral reuse, allowing tokenised Treasuries to be rehypothecated across counterparties immediately to address operational inefficiencies found in traditional markets. Future phases aim to further advance these capabilities, with a specific focus on enabling cross-border transactions.
Clearstream Launches Next Data Solutions to Enhance Post-Trade Analytics
Clearstream, part of Deutsche Börse Group, has introduced Next Data Solutions, a new suite of analytics designed to increase transparency across the post-trade value chain. The offering unifies four specific products—SettlementNext, LendingNext, CollateralNext, and LiquidityNext—under a single framework. The primary objective is to enable financial institutions to shift from retrospective reporting to proactive decision-making, allowing them to anticipate settlement challenges, optimise collateral allocation, and manage liquidity in real time.
Within the SettlementNext product, Clearstream has introduced the T+1 Scorecard to support clients preparing for the accelerated settlement cycle in Europe. This tool provides insights into the operational effort required to meet T+1 compliance standards. Next Data Solutions is currently available to clients through the Clearstream Xact web portal, with additional analytics modules scheduled for release in 2026.
Digital Asset Secures Strategic Investment from BNY, iCapital, Nasdaq and S&P Global
Digital Asset has received a new strategic investment from major financial institutions, including BNY, iCapital, Nasdaq and S&P Global. This funding supports the continued development of the Canton Network, a privacy-enabled blockchain designed to facilitate the convergence of traditional finance and decentralised finance. The collaboration highlights a wider industry shift towards an “AllFi” future, combining the benefits of decentralisation with the legal certainty and regulatory compliance required by global markets.
The Canton Network serves as a public, permissionless Layer-1 blockchain offering institutional-grade compliance and configurable privacy. It currently underpins over $6 trillion in onchain real-world assets, with participation from more than 600 institutions. The platform supports a diverse set of financial use cases, including bonds, equities, money market funds, commodities and insurance products, positioning itself as a critical component of next-generation financial market infrastructure.
Kraken and Deutsche Börse Group Form Strategic Partnership to Bridge Digital and Traditional Markets
Kraken and Deutsche Börse Group have announced a strategic partnership designed to create unified access across traditional financial markets and the digital asset economy. Effective immediately, the collaboration will span trading, custody, settlement, and collateral management to serve institutional clients. In the first phase, Kraken will integrate with 360T, a Deutsche Börse subsidiary, to access bank-grade foreign exchange liquidity. This integration aims to improve the efficiency of fiat on- and off-ramps while ensuring institutional-grade execution.
The partnership also intends to utilise Kraken Embed to develop white-label solutions, allowing financial institutions in Europe and the US to offer secure crypto trading and custody. Subject to regulatory approval, the firms plan to make Eurex-listed derivatives available on Kraken and enable Deutsche Börse clients to trade cryptocurrencies via Crypto Finance. Additionally, the companies will collaborate on tokenised assets by integrating xStocks within the 360X ecosystem and distributing tokenised securities held at Clearstream to Kraken’s clients, effectively leveraging Deutsche Börse’s European infrastructure and Kraken’s US capabilities.
SmartStream Introduces AI-Driven Smart Agents for Investigations to Automate Financial Reconciliations
SmartStream has announced the preview of Smart Agents for Investigations, a solution designed to bring augmented and autonomous capabilities to financial reconciliations and back-office operations. Integrating with SmartStream’s current platforms, these agents utilise domain-trained AI to triage, investigate, and resolve exceptions. The system understands the context of breaks, adheres to customer playbooks, and autonomously sources missing information. Crucially, it documents every action for audit and compliance purposes, shifting the user experience from manual investigation to a streamlined review and approval process.
This development addresses the heavy operational burden of manual exception handling, which currently accounts for up to 70% of effort in financial institutions. Complex, time-sensitive exceptions often lead to high costs, SLA breaches, and settlement risks. By automating these processes, Smart Agents aim to reduce reliance on manual intervention, eliminate knowledge silos, and improve scalability during volume spikes. This ensures greater operational resilience and allows analysts to focus on risk management rather than administrative tasks.
LSEG Integrates MCP Connector for ChatGPT users and OpenAI Enterprise Customers
LSEG is collaborating with OpenAI to integrate its financial data and news into ChatGPT via a Model Context Protocol (MCP) connector. As part of the ‘LSEG Everywhere’ strategy, this integration allows users with LSEG licensed credentials to access and analyse market data directly within the ChatGPT interface. The rollout will commence with LSEG Financial Analytics, enabling faster insights and deeper market analysis, with the connector expected to be live from the week of 8 December 2025.
Additionally, LSEG is deploying ChatGPT Enterprise to an initial 4,000 employees to streamline internal tasks and enhance productivity within a secure environment. LSEG will work alongside OpenAI’s technical success teams to ensure the effective adoption of these AI models. This partnership builds upon LSEG’s recent collaborations with other enterprise-grade platforms, including Microsoft and Databricks, to deliver trusted licensed data for AI applications in the financial services sector.