Finastra accelerates its global push with new offices

• Key insight: Finastra's new Atlanta office aims to localize engineering and product for U.S. clients.
• What's at stake: U.S. focus may shift competitive power among payment processors and fintech hubs.
• Expert quote: Consultant Tyler Brown says Atlanta provides rich fintech talent pools for expansion.
  Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

The U.K.-based financial software provider Finastra is adding to its footprint as it attempts to improve its appeal to international clients. 
The fintech is opening a new Atlanta office, along with expanded offices and an innovation center in India.

"Atlanta has emerged as one of the world's leading fintech hubs," said Finastra CEO Chris Walters. "These new and expanded offices position us to accelerate modernization, strengthen customer partnerships and deliver secure, reliable innovation at global scale."

The new Atlanta office will house employees across engineering, product, data and corporate functions. The office will also serve as Finastra's U.S. leadership base, with Walters splitting his time between his home residence in Atlanta and the company's global headquarters in London.

The new offices and expanded facilities support the company's broader expansion goals by creating additional physical proximity to its existing U.S. customers. 

"Our focus is on being closer to customers, attracting top talent and building the capabilities banks need right now," Walters told American Banker. "The Atlanta office supports all three: It gives us a strong presence in a major tech and financial hub where we can attract top talent." 

Tyler Brown, an independent fintech and payments consultant, told American Banker that the Atlanta area hosts several large fintech providers as major employers, and that attracts potential employees that Finastra's new office would be able to access.

"I would be surprised if they had much of a pipeline in Orlando or Portland," he said, referring to two of Finastra's other U.S. office locations. "There are plenty of vendors to poach from; Fiserv, Global Payments and NCR's descendants come immediately to mind. If they want to expand in payments, Atlanta is certainly where they'll find the people to do it."

Finastra reports it has 3,500 U.S. commercial clients in financial services and that figure has "largely held steady over the years" due to consolidation in the U.S. small bank and credit union market.

Finastra was formed from a merger between two other fintechs, D+H and Misys, in 2017, and launched various open banking initiatives to enter the U.S. community bank space in 2019. 

Finastra has slimmed down its product offerings this year by selling its treasury and capital markets division to the private equity firm Apax in May. Vista Equity Partners, the firm that owns Finastra, acquires and divests portions of its portfolio on a regular basis.

"Finastra could have a transformative transaction that would narrow its geographic focus and give them a good reason to invest in an Atlanta hub," Brown said. "If, as rumored, Vista carves off some of Finastra's global business, the proceeds would probably fund investments or acquisitions in markets where it wants to focus. The U.S. could be one of them." 

Finastra ventured into the crypto space through a partnership with the U.S.-based digital asset marketplace Bakkt in late 2021, and in August of this year it partnered with the stablecoin provider Circle to incorporate USDC into Finastra's domestic and cross-border payment products for bank customers.

"Now that Fiserv has its own stablecoin and is pitching a digital asset platform, any large payment processor that doesn't have a stablecoin strategy will slip behind peers as traditional and decentralized payment systems merge," Brown said.