GFT cultivates core banking capabilities with acquisition of Colombia’s Sophos Solutions
IT services provider GFT Technologies is set to acquire Colombian core banking vendor Sophos Solutions from UK-based private equity firm Advent International.
GFT Technologies to acquire Sophos Solutions
The acquisition is expected to be completed early next month and financial terms have not been disclosed. The deal will see GFT take ownership of 100% of Sophos’ shares.
The firm will also take on all of Sophos’ partners and 1,700 of its employees, increasing GFT’s headcount by 20% to 12,000.
Headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, GFT provides software solutions pertaining to digital finance, enterprise AI and data, platform and mainframe modernisation, and internet of things.
As part of its “continued focus on growth and profitability”, the services provider claims to be actively increasing its presence in 20 markets worldwide, particularly in Latin America.
Already active in Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica, GFT’s acquisition of Sophos has widened its footprint to now include Colombia, Chile and Panama, positioning it as “a top three provider of IT services for banking” in the region.
Headquartered in Bogotá, Sophos is perhaps best recognised for its financial core solution, which is orientated within treasury functions, assets and liabilities, credit cards, transactional switches, digital banking, brokering and investment funds. It also offers a corresponding treasury core management (TCM) solution for capital markets, with a focus on treasury, trading, data processing, risk management and accounting domains.
GFT says it expects its latest acquisition to expand its capacity to deliver core banking specifically, while also benefitting from increased technological expertise.
Marika Lulay, CEO of GFT, praises the move’s “multiplying potential”, and describes all aspects of the purchase as “highly valuable to us”, adding that it will result in “high traction for GFT in Latin America’s third-largest market Colombia, plus exponential growth scope in the Americas and beyond”.
