SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

AutoRek has acquired Grath, adding the company’s reconciliation and regulatory compliance technology to its product range.

The deal combines AutoRek’s established reconciliation and financial controls platform with Grath’s newer focus on artificial intelligence for reconciliation and exception handling in financial services.

London-based Grath, founded in 2019, serves banks, payment providers, brokers and fintechs, with offices in the UK, the UAE and Australia. Earlier this year, it launched Topa, a product designed to let financial services teams integrate matching tools, sector-trained machine learning models and an agentic reasoning layer into their internal systems.

The combined business will offer customers three main ways to deploy reconciliation tools under one control framework: AutoRek’s private cloud platform for firms with complex requirements, Grath’s multi-tenant software-as-a-service platform for faster deployment, and Topa for institutions that want to build their own reconciliation systems in-house.

Product range

The private cloud offering remains centred on AutoRek’s core platform and its AutoRek Intelligent Agent, known as ARIA. That option is aimed at customers handling high transaction volumes, varied data sources and strict regulatory obligations.

Grath’s software-as-a-service platform is aimed at customers that want governance aligned with Financial Conduct Authority expectations without building their own infrastructure. Topa, meanwhile, is intended for firms that want to embed matching services and AI-based exception handling directly into proprietary technology environments while retaining architectural control.

The combined group is seeking to cover more of the reconciliation process, from data ingestion and matching to controls, risk and compliance management. This broadens AutoRek’s addressable market beyond larger institutions that may favour dedicated deployments to include firms seeking faster implementation or embedded components.

AutoRek Chief Executive Officer Chris Livesey said the deal reflects customer demand for stronger oversight of artificial intelligence.

“Customers want the benefits of AI delivered through governance, auditability and human oversight. By bringing together AutoRek’s enterprise control capabilities with Grath’s AI innovation, customers gain more choice in how they deploy and more confidence in the controls that underpin it,” Livesey said.

Grath Chief Executive Officer Matt Povey said the acquisition reflects changing customer expectations in financial services.

“Financial services is at an inflection point. Institutions no longer want to choose between robust enterprise controls and the speed of AI-led innovation, and now they do not have to. Whether customers want a dedicated deployment, a SaaS solution live in hours, or embedded agentic infrastructure, they can now adopt any model within a single governed framework,” Povey said.

Geographic reach

The transaction also extends AutoRek’s international footprint. Grath adds a US client base to AutoRek’s growing presence in that market and deepens its reach in the Middle East through Grath’s UAE customers.

That expansion follows AutoRek’s opening of a Miami office and the hiring of two senior sales executives focused on the region. The acquisition suggests the company is pursuing growth through both direct expansion and product-led consolidation in reconciliation technology.

AutoRek was founded in 1994 and says it has more than 170 employees across five locations, serving more than 100 clients in 15 countries. Its software automates reconciliation and financial control processes, including matching and break analysis, for organisations across the financial sector.

Since its launch in 2019, Grath has focused on reconciliation and regulatory compliance software for financial institutions. Its customer base spans banking, payments, broking and fintech, giving AutoRek access to a younger business with a narrower but more AI-focused offering.

The transaction highlights how reconciliation software providers are combining automation and AI tools with governance and audit requirements as financial institutions look to reduce manual work without weakening control standards.

Boss Peter Ruis said the relaunch of the brand’s sports and wellbeing product range is an “important step” in its major store investment plan.

The department store business, which is part of the John Lewis Partnership group, said its new sports and wellbeing departments will make it the first UK retailer to bring sportswear, footwear, wearable technology, recovery, AI-powered fitness and expert services together in one location.

The move will help the retailer take on major players in sportswear, such as Sports Direct, as well as technology specialists.

READ MORE: Over 600 jobs lost as UK high street chain closes more than 130 shops

The multimillion-pound investment has already transformed the sports department in its London Oxford Street site.

It will also fund similar redevelopments in Liverpool and Cheadle, as well as a new department in its Glasgow shop.

The departments will be up to around 5,000 square feet and have been designed so shoppers can move easily between apparel, footwear, technology, home fitness and recovery.

The concept will include sports brands including Nike, Brooks and Patagonia alongside wearable technology from Garmin, Oura and Whoop, recovery products from Therabody, and premium home fitness equipment from Peloton, NordicTrack and Speediance.

Shoppers will also be able to use free gait analysis and other technology to help them find the right footwear and other products.

READ MORE: Changes at Westgate Oxford include two new arrivals opening soon

The investment is part of an £800 million cash injection from John Lewis into its 36 stores across the UK.

One of these can be found at Oxford’s Westgate shopping centre as the anchor store at the retail location, which reopened back in 2017 following a full-scale renovation.

Mr Ruis, managing director of John Lewis, said: “Customers increasingly shop around a goal rather than a traditional retail category.

“Whether someone’s training for their first marathon, taking up Hyrox or simply looking to live a healthier lifestyle, they want everything they need in one place.

“Our combination of leading brands, expert partners, nationwide shops and strong digital offer means we’re uniquely placed to support customers across every part of their fitness journey – from finding the right footwear and technical clothing to discovering the latest wearable technology, home fitness and recovery products.”

B&M has completed a point-of-sale rollout across more than 790 UK stores with PMC, replacing legacy till systems with new hardware and software across its estate.

The project covered one of the UK’s largest discount retail estates and was delivered with support from PMC and point-of-sale partner Flooid. The work was intended to modernise store operations and improve the in-store experience for customers and staff.

B&M had been looking to replace an older point-of-sale setup with a standardised system that could be deployed across hundreds of locations with limited disruption to trading. Given the size of the estate, the rollout had to be repeated store by store while day-to-day operations continued as normal.

According to PMC, the programme used automated hardware builds, centralised software deployment and real-time monitoring. The approach reduced the time needed at each store and removed the need for on-site engineering work during installation.

The businesses have worked together for more than seven years on managed IT services. That existing relationship helped underpin the latest project, with B&M working alongside PMC and its internal IT teams during the rollout.

Store estate

B&M said the updated system provides a more reliable and standardised platform across its store network. It also expects the change to reduce faults, improve the experience for store colleagues and speed up transactions for customers at the tills.

The deployment moved from pilot stage to full rollout in January and was completed in August, with support from PMC teams in the UK and India.

For retailers with large physical estates, point-of-sale projects remain a core part of broader store technology spending. Replacing legacy systems can affect checkout speed, uptime, staff training and the ability to make software changes centrally across large networks.

David Laithwaite, Implementation Services Manager at B&M, said: “PMC have proven experience with delivering POS solutions. Their collaboration and seamless coordination with our other service provider and B&M staff have been exemplary. The synergy in communication and a joined-up working approach across the board has significantly enhanced our operational efficiency, enabling remarkable progress with this project.”

Sheila Whitfield, Retail Service Delivery Manager at B&M, commented on the delivery timetable: “We’ve seen PMC rise to the challenge, proactively plan for the narrow time window and ramp up resources to ensure the work gets done on time.”

Checkout changes

The updated tills are intended to make checkout more efficient and reduce friction for both customers and staff. B&M also said the system should support colleague onboarding by providing a more consistent user experience in stores.

Flooid worked with PMC on the point-of-sale element of the programme. The arrangement combined software deployment, hardware installation processes and estate-wide monitoring under a single rollout plan for the retailer’s store base.

The project also reflects continued investment in physical shops at a time when retailers are under pressure to manage labour, maintain uptime and keep queues moving. In discount retail in particular, small improvements in till speed and reliability can have a noticeable effect across a large national estate.

Jake Allmond, Managed Services Director at PMC, said: “By building in operational agility and more seamless checkout experiences, B&M has improved customer and colleague experiences. The solution will not only create friction-free and faster transactions at the tills but will modernise B&M’s in-store technology landscape, allowing it to further enhance checkout capabilities in line with customer demands and evolving expectations.”