SBI Holdings Invests in Potamus Holdings

According to an official press release, SBI Crypto Investment has made a strategic investment in Potamus Holdings.

Potamus Holdings is the parent company of Potamus Trading, which is a broker-dealer which offers trading infrastructure.  SBI Crypto Investment is a subsidiary of SBI Holdings, a provider of inter-based financial services. Potamus Holdings is based in Boston, and SBI Holdings is based in Tokyo.

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The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Potamus Trading operates a platform that provides algorithmic execution services to buy-side institutions. It aims to lower execution costs by combining high-frequency execution with mid- and low-frequency institutional orders. It offers transparency through reviews of execution quality via a variety of metrics.

Kristin Linnell, Managing Partner of Potamus Trading, said, “We are excited to partner with SBI, who shares our vision of delivering conflict free execution to buy-side asset managers. We look forward to leveraging SBI’s considerable resources and expertise as we expand our global reach.”

Yoshitaka Kitao, Representative Director, President and CEO of SBI, added, “SBI is dedicated to creating a new financial ecosystem and our investment in Potamus underscores our commitment to bringing financial innovation to the equity markets worldwide. We are confident in Potamus’ smart technology and its ability to disrupt an outdated institutional equities business.”

Yesterday we reported on SBI Holdings launching a cryptocurrency exchange. It is the first major traditional financial institution to make such a move. The exchange is called VCTRADE and will initially only deal in XRP, the cryptocurrency of blockchain-based payment processor Ripple. It plans to add support for Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in the future.

It initially announced its intention to launch the exchange in October 2017.