BCB Group, Europe’s leading provider of business accounts and trading services for the digital asset economy, announced today that it has acquired LAB577, a software engineering venture studio at the nexus of financial services and emerging technology.
With a dedicated focus on institutional payment services, BCB Group provides business accounts, cryptocurrency and foreign exchange market liquidity for some of the world’s largest crypto-engaged financial institutions. BCB Group is the only multi-regulated institution of its kind to offer clients a complete end-to-end suite of payment processing, cryptocurrency trading and custody services accessible through a unified API-enabled platform, allowing clients to access a complete range of digital asset services in one place.
After 4 years of working together, the partnership between LAB577 and BCB Group has deepened, as the emerging technology software company becomes the latest business to join the group. Both parties share a common vision in making the financial system fair, inclusive and sustainable via innovation. Recognising the opportunities that digital assets offer to the financial services industry, they realise they can make this vision a reality by working together.
This is a reality that can already be seen in the connection of their two financial products, BLINC and DASL. BLINC is the European crypto industry’s first instant settlements network and one of the first real-time payment networks of its kind to allow free, real-time transactions across fiat and digital currencies. Together, BLINC and DASL have accelerated the client offerings BCB Group has brought to market. With seamless ledger and settlement services integrated into fiat banks and digital asset custodians, DASL provides high speed bi-lateral transactions with full privacy between parties.
BCB Group Founder and CEO Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie commented: “As one of LAB577’s first clients, we’ve always been in awe of their ability to deliver innovative blockchain tech in a way that plays well in both TradFi and DeFi. We are thrilled to bring Richard and team fully into the group where we can build stuff the industry needs much more closely and quickly together.”
Richard Crook, Founder of LAB577, who now becomes the COO of BCB Group said “We are delighted that LAB577 is joining BCB Group to accelerate our shared exciting next chapter of growth. DASL becoming part of BLINC will extend participants’ ability to settle instantly in any currency or digital asset, with no limits.”
The LAB577 team will be incorporated into BCB Group, adding strength to their engineering and commercial teams, including Richard Crook as COO and Farzad ‘Fuzz’ Pezeshkpour who becomes the CTO of BCB Group. Since 2001, Fuzz has served in multiple roles across major tier 1 investment banks, including the platform architect and technical lead for the FX Options platform at NatWest Markets, Head of Credit Risk IT at Deutsche Bank and Head of Engineering for Risk at NatWest. He has been working with DLTs since 2014 - including Ripple, Ethereum and Corda. Notably, he is a key contributor to the Corda open source project. For his contributions and achievements in his career, he was awarded the title of Distinguished Engineer at NatWest.