Andreas is originally a Software Engineer by trade and has been involved in the development of financial technology start-up companies for 20 years, in various parts of the world. As CEO of SMARTS, he drove the development of a global standard for market surveillance, which was adopted by many stock exchanges, securities regulators, and banks. The business was acquired by Nasdaq in 2010. He first started to look at the concept of electronic cash at University in the 1990s and then became involved in David Chaum's original DigiCash.