.jpg)
Australian based financial services technology companies SMARTS Group Pty Ltd and Capital Markets Surveillance Services Pty Ltd (CMSS) today announced the successful merger of the two groups. The newly merged organisation is operating as SMARTS Group Holdings Pty Ltd (SMARTS Group). This new company is now the undisputed global leader in market surveillance technology for exchanges, regulators and brokers.
The new group has more than 100 employees and combined revenues of over AUD25 Million. The Chairman of the new group is SMARTS Group co-founder and Capital Markets CRC Chief Scientist, Dr Mike Aitken and the CEO is former CEO of CMSS, Dr Andreas Furche.
“The merger allows for a combined entity with a stronger, more diversified product and customer portfolio to drive sustained growth and product innovation. It is a natural combination of global experts in market surveillance and the logical next step for both organisations,” said Dr Furche.
“Through the new group we intend to build an even stronger commercial organisation by leveraging economies of scale to efficiently and effectively establish a truly global presence. Establishing local operations in international markets is costly and resource intensive, however by entering markets as a combined entity we are spreading the costs. This approach will allow us to grow more quickly and penetrate more markets than we could have as separate companies”, said Dr Furche.
Both organisations were founded and developed in Australia and have built up very successful businesses in the financial technology sector. SMARTS was set up in 1994 to market its real-time surveillance, market supervision and market compliance monitoring system to exchanges and regulatory authorities world-wide. SMARTS’ sophisticated proprietary technology monitors exchanges for market violations, including insider trading and market manipulation. The SMARTS Integrity Platform is now the international benchmark for exchange and regulatory market surveillance systems. It is operating on some of the world’s leading exchanges, including the Australian, London, Hong Kong and Singapore stock exchanges.
CMSS was set up in 2004 as a joint venture between SMARTS Group and the Capital Markets Co-operative Research Centre (CMCRC). The CMSS managed service, Compliance Explorer, uses the underlying IP of the SMARTS Integrity Platform and is customised for implementation for the broking community.
Compliance Explorer, which will be rebranded SMARTS Broker, is currently used by over 40 brokers in 25 markets internationally and boasts customers which include many of the world’s largest banks and investment houses.
“While we intend to keep much of the operations of the business separate due to the strict security requirements of our customers and regulators, we believe we can achieve greater synergies by streamlining some of the management and sales functions of the two groups. This streamlining will allow us to more effectively leverage our core IP to deliver the best solutions for our customers”, said Dr Furche.
“Through the newly merged SMARTS Group, we hope to raise our profile as a successful Australian innovative company. We aim to double our size in five years and will be looking for top Australian talent. We are the undisputed leaders in market surveillance technology and are proudly Australian based with over 100 development and technical support staff”, said Dr Furche.
Commenting on the future, Dr Furche concluded by saying, “We still see enormous growth potential in the financial services sector, however growth can come from many sectors. SMARTS core technology can be applied to any marketplace which brings together orders from multiple parties and matches trades and that requires supervision and surveillance, such as carbon trading and energy trading. Whilst we have not customised a solution for these markets, as yet, we are assessing all options to continue to drive growth for the business”.
