ACA Group acquires FX Transparency

ACA Group, a governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) consultancy focusing on the financial services industry, has acquired FX Transparency, a Boston-based provider of foreign exchange (FX) transaction cost analysis and execution quality analytics to institutional investors.

Founded in 2009, FX Transparency leverages proprietary analytics and a broad repository of institutional trading data to help clients evaluate trading performance, optimize execution strategies, and demonstrate best execution across global FX markets.

The boutique firm’s team includes CEO and co-founder John Galanek, CTO Jeff Joyce, and senior quantitative analyst Michael Ciampi.

ACA’s acquisition of FX Transparency builds on its 2025 addition of Global Trading Analytics, which formed its transaction cost analysis practice. 

“The acquisition of FX Transparency represents a deliberate next step in building a best-in-class, cross-asset transaction cost analysis platform,” said Patrick Olson, CEO of ACA Group. “Following our successful acquisition of Global Trading Analytics, we identified FX Transparency as a complementary platform that brings recognized FX expertise, a strong institutional client base, and differentiated analytics that enhance our ability to support clients’ transaction cost analysis and best execution needs.”

ACA is the GRC consulting platform of Genstar Capital, which acquired and merged the New York-based company with Foreside in 2021. ACA has 1,400 employees across 9 offices in the US, UK, UAE, and India advising financial services clients on compliance, AML and finance crimes, ESG, cybersecurity, investment performance, and distribution.

“Joining ACA enables us to continue delivering the high-quality foreign exchange analytics our clients expect, now supported by ACA’s global operating resources and broad GRC expertise,” Galanek said. “Together, we can provide a comprehensive TCA solution that addresses the evolving needs of global institutional investors.”