abrdn acquires stake in UK digital securities exchange Archax

Launching later this year, Archax will provide access for institutional investors to blockchain-based digital assets

Wealth management firm abrdn has concluded a deal to become the largest external shareholder in Archax, the UK’s first regulated digital securities exchange.

Launching later this year, Archax will provide access for institutional investors to blockchain-based digital assets. It is the first and only digital securities exchange to win approval from the UK Financial Conduct Authority with permissions covering trading, custody and brokerage.

The exchange will serve as a route through which investors that abrdn works with can access new investment opportunities offered by digital assets.

Abrdn will also work with Archax to connect investors to existing offerings in a new way via tokenisation and facilitate a shift towards greater operating efficiencies through the adoption of new technologies like blockchain.

Commenting on the investment, Stephen Bird, chief executive officer at abrdn, said: “Archax is one of the most promising UK players in this next expected high growth area in finance—the use of digital and tokenised securities with same-day settlement. In that sense, the growth of the digital investment market is about much more than cryptocurrencies.”

“With Archax, we will have a meaningful footprint in this fast-developing market—which is likely to evolve in a multitude of different ways that are relevant to our core businesses. This investment not only provides an opportunity for substantial financial benefits, it also creates a partnership with some of the leading thinkers in an area that has the potential to play a substantial role in the future of finance.”

Archax chief executive officer Graham Rodford commented: “It is extremely exciting to have abrdn as a strategic investor in our business. We see this as a massive statement of belief in what we have built at Archax, as well as being a key milestone in our evolution and for the digital/tokenised world as a whole.”

“We look forward to working with abrdn closely to provide a new universe of users with access to our services, as well as creating new innovative tokenised products that will trade on our marketplace.”

Image: Archax and abrdn

Mark Dugdale