History & Provenance
Operational Origins
Built to make sovereign finance verifiable under pressure.
Abyrint was established in 2013 to address a recurring failure mode in high-risk public portfolios: when financial controls cannot operate in practice, funding becomes difficult to govern, difficult to verify, and easy to compromise.
The firm was started by the two partners leaving PwC to build a focused practice where few firms could deliver consistently in the real operating environment.
We began with a 120-day time-bound, fixed-price engagement in an access-constrained environment—tasked with establishing a verifiable control layer for sovereign finance.
The Bootstrapped Reality
Leaving a partnership track in a large firm meant giving up predictable income, brand cover, and internal infrastructure. Everything needed to be built from scratch.
The firm was bootstrapped on founder credit. We carried costs and liability up front, including mobilisation and specialist payroll, before we knew whether there would be a durable market. Continuity is never guaranteed in professional services: firms can only stay in business if the next contract is won.
Delivering that standard repeatedly required firm infrastructure of our own. We built a disciplined operating system for delivery: secure data handling, knowledge management, and practical analytics that turn transaction-level system data streams into insights and auditable conclusions.
What we learned early
In environments where institutions are under strain, creating real-time assurance requires more than just policy oversight. It requires a deep understanding of the financial governance architecture, the specific interfaces, settlement layers, and procedural flows that move public funds.
Abyrint was built to tap into these realities:
- Transaction-level monitoring: Interfacing directly with host-country tech stacks, often not designed for control, to extract data and verify flows in real time.
- Deep-system verification: Validating the critical infrastructure that cannot be assumed, settlement mechanics, correspondent banking links, and the interface between Treasury and Central Bank.
- Diagnostic feedback loops: Using assurance insights and data not just to audit, but to drive the design and improvement of the sovereign systems themselves.
Operational Definition
Abyrint is an independent fiduciary assurance and sovereign advisory practice. We build and test control environments that strengthen traceability, compliance, and decision quality in public financial systems operating under demanding conditions.
Note: We are not a funding allocator and we do not route public funds. We deliver contracted services with independence, documentation standards, and conflicts controls.
Given the sensitivity of sovereign financial and security-adjacent systems, we keep engagement-level operational details non-public while maintaining audit-grade documentation for counterparties.
A note on provenance
"Abyrint was founded by Ivar Strand following senior roles in international professional services and multilateral work. The firm’s early mandate reinforced a simple conclusion: resilient financial control is a prerequisite for stability. Abyrint exists to build that control—practically, contract-by-contract, with evidence."