Supporting Ukraine and Global Financial Markets

Supporting Ukraine and Global Financial Markets

At Capitolis we are devoted to making the global financial markets work better for our clients and the communities in which they operate. We now have the opportunity to greatly help these clients reduce risk and aid Ukrainian people at the same time.

Many of our global bank clients have large historical exposures denominated in Russian rubles. Through our trade compression platform we are working to reduce these large gross exposures and promote financial soundness and stability for the benefit of the whole system.

In addition to helping our clients and the overall market, Capitolis will donate 1/2 of our revenues from these compression activities to Ukrainian relief and humanitarian efforts. We stand united in support of Ukraine, will take action, and put our resources where they are needed most.

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VC Partner Perspective

VC Partner Perspective

Capitolis is backed by preeminent VC investors including Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Sequoia, and Spark.
Alex Rampell, a16z General Partner, explains why a16z – known for backing bold entrepreneurs building the future through technology – chose to invest in Capitolis.

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People Attributes

People Attributes

Capitolis seeks to build our team and culture with extraordinary people. Our People Attributes provide a consistent framework to hire, assess, and develop our team against.
  • Quality Thinking – goal-oriented, logical, clear and concise, see the essence, break down problems to solve them, how your brain works
  • Know what good looks like – excellent skills and experience, knowledgeable, learned over time
  • All in – all about making our company successful, act like an owner, care more about achieving the goal than looking good, unafraid to raise issues and ask difficult questions, fight to make sense of things, not just a job
  • Get stuff done – entrepreneurial, scrappy, gritty, relentless, agile/nimble, operate with a sense of urgency, crush it, reliable
  • High standards – demand to work with the best (A-players), no tolerance for mediocrity, give honest and direct feedback, hold one another accountable
  • Team player – collaborative, help each other grow, care deeply about the people around us, treat others with decency and compassion, no big egos
  • Open-minded – strong opinions loosely held, know what you don’t know, seek input from others to inform your view, listen and be willing to change your mind
  • Authentic and real – comfortable enough to be ourselves, honest, unguarded, no façade
  • Pursue self-actualization – self-aware, humble, learn from mistakes, intentional, curious, continuous growth and development

GlobalTrading Podcast: Capitolis’ ‘Audacious’ Goal to Transform Capital Markets

GlobalTrading Podcast: Capitolis’ ‘Audacious’ Goal to Transform Capital Markets

Capitolis CEO and Founder Gil Mandelzis and President Justin Klug discuss the fintech firm’s past, present, future and its core mission to optimize capital markets, with GlobalTrading Host Terry Flanagan.

CLICK HERE to listen to podcast.

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Acadia and Capitolis Launch SA-CCR Optimization Service

Acadia and Capitolis Launch SA-CCR Optimization Service

New service deepens commitment to enhanced capital optimization for regulatory changes

Acadia, the leading industry provider of integrated risk management services for the derivatives community, and Capitolis, the leading SaaS platform that drives financial resource optimization for capital markets, today announced the launch of SA-CCR Optimization. SA-CCR Optimization will bring considerable cost savings to firms subject to the Standard Approach to Counterparty Credit Risk (SA-CCR) regulations, focusing on specific FX products such as FX forwards, options, deliverable swaps and cross-currency swaps.

With SA-CCR Optimization, banks and participating financial institutions provide trade data, which Acadia and Capitolis process and generate a series of FX transactions that reduce capital requirements, leaving each client’s net FX risk profile largely unchanged.

“The newest wave of capital regulation is pushing firms to be more mindful of capital consumption across their business.  SA-CCR Optimization is an opportunity for them to reduce consumption levels and deploy their capital in a more efficient manner,” says Chris Walsh, Chief Executive Officer of Acadia. “We are thrilled to provide clients with a dynamic infrastructure solution to compress trades and significantly reduce capital consumption, building upon our data analytics with Capitolis’ market-leading optimization platform.”

The launch of SA-CCR Optimization deepens the partnership between the two leaders in their fields, combining Acadia’s risk analytics and margin data platforms and Capitolis’ proprietary technology, allowing for greater capital optimization for financial institutions.

Gil Mandelzis, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Capitolis added “Our continued integration with Acadia’s trusted platform is an effective solution for our clients to maximize efficiency in SA-CCR balance sheet optimization. Our partnership will also position the industry for success in multilateral optimization of SA-CCR.”

SA-CCR requirements for financial institutions based in some parts of Europe went into effect in June 2021, while regulations in the United States are set to be implemented on January 1, 2022.

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Why the Buy Side Should be Talking to Their Banks About Capital Costs

Why the Buy Side Should be Talking to Their Banks About Capital Costs

The coming 12 months will see an upheaval in financial markets as the impact of two important pieces of regulation is felt by more buy side firms.

The Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR) and the Standard Approach for Counterparty Credit Risk (SA-CCR) will have a direct and indirect impact, respectively, on the largest asset managers. Although some managers may still be out of scope of UMR, the trickle-down effect of these regulations on their bank suppliers means they too should be preparing now.

Put simply, capital and margin are getting more expensive for banks. Consequently, the cost of servicing clients in the age of SA-CCR and UMR will increase, sometimes dramatically, if no additional measures are taken. Reducing these effects requires a joint buy- and sell-side effort to maintain an optimal, or even in some cases sustainable, service model for the benefit of all participants. Capital optimization opportunities will be at the heart of solving for this.

There is much to establish on the final impact of SA-CCR, but a significant impact is likely to be in directional, uncollateralized portfolios. For managers who fit this profile one may need to expand the network beyond the bilateral dealer to client and work across the panel of the manager’s counterparties. Finding solutions to address SA-CCR impact clearly has mutual benefits such as maximizing market accessibility and liquidity for the buy-side and opportunities for the sell-side.

An example of how asset managers are likely to be affected can be found in the knock-on effect of the G-SIB (Globally Systemically Important Banks) regulation in the forward FX market. A 2020[1] White Paper from the Bank for International Settlements found that at quarter-end, when banks are most focused on their G-SIB rating, – and as normal market practice, asset managers also re-evaluate and rebalance portfolios -, there is a discernible reduction in liquidity levels in FX swaps markets and spreads widen.

As the focus on capital efficiency and usage intensifies, it may well transpire that these particular liquidity phenomena don’t appear only at quarter-end, and managers could find their panel of banks less able or willing to price them as aggressively as they once had. Therefore, the starting point for many managers is having conversations with their providers to explore what they mutually could do to help the banks’ positions, and vice versa, and finding technology solutions enabling access to a broad centralized network of participants.

There are naturally multi-fold additional optimization benefits to be had for the buy-side. Such technologies with novation and compression solutions that are tailored across their needs – including the management of counterparty concentration risks, limits, and gross notional levels – further reduce capital costs and increase operational efficiencies.

This means that FX capital optimization is going to become a much more ingrained part of an asset manager’s toolkit, with in-depth analytics and well-presented data that is easy to interpret and action. This further implies a need for technology solutions dedicated to providing managers with the most up-to-date information and the ability to partake in optimization at the click of a button.

Initially, dealer-to-client SA-CCR optimization will likely be more post-trade based, with the manager retaining access to its same panel of liquidity and trades can be re-papered to the most appropriate and capital-effective counterparties. In the future, one can further envision a process where the impact of capital optimization is embedded in FX TCA (Transaction Cost Analysis) for instruments such as FX Forwards and Swaps. Ultimately, capital optimization is one component of many that can be incorporated into best execution processes to manage costs for the benefit of the end investor.

The clock is ticking on UMR and SA-CCR and although the costs on banks have not necessarily cascaded to the buy side so far, their impact is becoming more quantified. This will not be a ‘big bang’ moment since banks sit at different stages of their understanding of SA-CCR’s impact and is yet to be fully assessed. However further down the road, the overall benefits of addressing these capital costs with counterparties will become impossible to ignore.

[1] https://www.bis.org/publ/work836.pdf

Dr. Petra Wikstrom holds a PhD in Turbulence, Fluid Dynamics, from the Department of Mechanics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, one of Europe’s leading technical and engineering universities.

Petra is currently a Business Development Executive with Capitolis. She is the former Global Head of Execution & Alpha Solutions within FXLM & Commodity Derivatives Sales and Trading at BNP Paribas in New York, NY. Previously she was the Head of QSI North America within FXEM Sales and Structuring at Morgan Stanley in New York, and the former Global Head Quant Solutions at RBS (now NatWest) in Greenwich CT and London, England.

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Capitolis To Integrate with State Street’s TradeNeXus Platform

Capitolis To Integrate with State Street’s TradeNeXus Platform

The partnership will provide seamless access to Capitolis’ proprietary optimization technology for customers of TradeNeXus, State Street’s award-winning post-trade solution

Capitolis, the fintech company re-imagining how the capital markets operate, today announced it will deliver to customers on State Street’s TradeNeXus platform, access to identify optimization opportunities, eliminate large and unnecessary positions, and free up capital through Capitolis’ optimization, novation, and trade compression solutions. Capitolis will connect to TradeNeXus’ large network of asset managers and executing banks, who electronically match, confirm, and communicate FX and Money Market settlement information.

The announcement comes as financial institutions are increasingly leveraging optimization services to help them comply with new regulations such as Standardized Approach for measuring Counterparty Credit Risk (SA-CCR) and Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR), which will impact their operations significantly over the next year. The collaboration has the potential to affect returns on capital and drive new cost efficiencies.

“Now is an opportune time for Capitolis to enter into this collaboration with State Street’s award-winning TradeNeXus platform with forthcoming regulations on capital requirements impacting how financial institutions address their balance sheets,” said Gil Mandelzis, CEO and founder of Capitolis. “State Street has been a fantastic partner to us for years, and we are excited to accelerate our efforts to bring optimization services to more buy-side institutions. TradeNeXus has unparalleled connectivity within the buy-side community. Together, we are revolutionizing how financial institutions engage with one another.”

“With deep capital markets expertise and an innovative technology platform, Capitolis is the ideal partner to complement the TradeNeXus offering, particularly with the implementation of new regulation in the near term,” said Louisa Kwok, Managing Director and Head of Product for TradeNeXus. “Combining Capitolis’ next-gen solutions with the TradeNeXus platform will be a critical differentiator in helping our clients optimize their workflows and post-trade processes.”

The news of the collaboration follows Capitolis’ recent announcement that it entered into an agreement to acquire LMRKTS. Earlier this year, the company also announced a partnership with leading FX settlement provider CLS to streamline trading and settlement for banks in the $6.6 trillion global currency market.

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Alicia Tillman, Former Top Marketing Boss at SAP, Joins Capitolis as Global Chief Marketing Officer

Alicia Tillman, Former Top Marketing Boss at SAP, Joins Capitolis as Global Chief Marketing Officer

  • Alicia is a three-time Forbes Most Influential CMO in the World recipient.
  • Her world-class marketing leadership driving brand transformation at large-scale companies will help accelerate Capitolis’ growth.
  • Capitolis continues to deliver hyper-growth following a $90 million series C funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz earlier this year and recent LMRKTS acquisition.

Capitolis, the fintech company re-imagining how the capital markets operate, today announced the appointment of Alicia Tillman as its Global Chief Marketing Officer. In this role, Alicia will build Capitolis’ worldwide marketing and communications strategy to drive significant brand awareness, demand, and customer growth.

Alicia brings to Capitolis tremendous depth of leadership experience at global giants SAP and American Express. Most recently, Alicia served as Global Chief Marketing Officer at SAP. She led SAP’s global marketing strategy, re-built the organization’s digital marketing infrastructure, re-wrote the brand narrative, delivered many recognized advertising campaigns around the world, and exponentially grew the company’s brand value as one of the top 20 most valuable brands in the world.

Prior to SAP, Alicia served as Global Vice President, Marketing, Public Affairs, and Business Services at American Express, where she overhauled the travel division’s marketing strategy and designed some of their first digital programs, including the travel and payment division’s first social media platforms and marketing automation capabilities.

In addition to her role at Capitolis, Alicia is a board director for Gates Industrial Corporation, a leader in industrial and commercial manufacturing, and Rainfocus, a leading event marketing technology company. She is also a board trustee and chairperson of the education committee for The Hun School of Princeton.

“Alicia has an incredible track record of building high-performing teams in large-scale companies that deliver superior levels of company brand value, awareness, demand, and loyalty,” said Gil Mandelzis, CEO and founder of Capitolis. “Alicia is the perfect CMO to join our leadership team as we continue to innovate and deliver value to the capital markets to accelerate Capitolis’ growth.”

“Capitolis’ technology enables collaboration between banks and financial institutions at a level of efficiency never seen before, improving overall business economics and investment capacity,” said Alicia. “I’m truly inspired by the size of the company’s ambition and the incredible culture and leadership team Gil has built, and I could not be more excited to build one of the world’s most valuable brands transforming the capital markets.”

Capitolis continues to expand its leadership team with numerous strategic appointments announced over the past year, including Christopher Pennington as Executive Vice President of Sales, Stuart Wexler as General Counsel, Jimmy Reilly as Head of Equity and Total Return Swaps Funding Solutions and Jen Vanderwall as Chief People and Culture Officer.

For more information on Capitolis, please visit www.capitolis.com.

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Eyeing the Future of Financial Resource Optimization

Eyeing the Future of Financial Resource Optimization

As SA-CCR is implemented in the US later this year, efficient use of capital is more critical than ever.

Capitolis CEO Gil Mandelzis and President Justin Klug recently spoke with Shanny Basar from Markets Media about the powerful impact of the network effect and the future of financial resource optimization. CLICK HERE to read the full article.

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SA-CCR and FX: Opportunity Knocks

SA-CCR and FX: Opportunity Knocks

Although SA-CCR (the Standardized Approach for Counterparty Credit Risk) will not impact every financial institution active in the FX markets, the roll out by the Basel Committee highlights the opportunity for all banks to streamline their use of capital, no matter what calculation methodology they use.

With SA-CCR’s roll out a staggered affair around the globe, market participants in some jurisdictions are fully au fait with the requirements while it is newly on the radar for others. Regardless of your level of awareness or preparedness, you should be focused on some basic questions:

  • How much capital are the various parts of my business consuming?
  • What can my business do to reduce consumption levels?

These questions are relevant not just under SA-CCR but across all capital requirement regulations and mechanisms. Even with SA-CCR replacing the Current Exposure Method (CEM) and the Standardized Method (SM) for banks, some larger banks will be able to continue using the Internal Models Method (IMM). Regardless of the regime or model, however, institutions of all sizes should be looking to optimize how they consume and allocate capital. Capital costs affect everyone, even when SA-CCR does not, so it’s crucial to access solutions and processes that allow for optimization.

If you are not already thinking about how you can flatten delta positions and reduce currency pair exposures, you should be. With the SA-CCR implementation clock already ticking, this lets you leverage opportunities under both SA-CCR and IMM.

To achieve optimum capital efficiency in FX markets, a level of flexibility and dynamism is required. With SA-CCR enabling currency pair netting, no matter the tenor of the exposures, the opportunity to compress and reduce capital consumption arises much more dynamically than before.

Accessing these opportunities requires having dedicated technology that can provide that up-to-the-minute view of a bank’s risk positions and counterparty exposures. Just as important, the technology needs to have a broad reach and offer multiple solutions to the same problem – capital efficiency – while meeting the needs of a range of institutions, all of which are potentially taking a different path to achieve the same end result.

To fully benefit from a range of solutions, however, the network effect has to play a key role. The more participants use the same service, analyze the same data, and access the same solutions, the more they can take advantage of opportunities – even before critical mass is achieved. Having access to the right information in a timely manner is critical to any institution seeking to reduce their capital footprint.

The right technology, data, and analytics democratizes capital optimization: it enables banks outside the very top group to streamline their Markets businesses without negatively impacting their position in the industry, or, importantly, the level of service they can provide to customers. Achieving this, though, means bringing a lot of moving parts together and embedding SA-CCR across the business:

  • Individual traders need to be aware of the potential cost of each new trade and, critically, where potential capital exposures can be reduced.
  • The trading manager should be looking at SA-CCR exposures in the pre-trade environment, working out where and with whom netting opportunities exist.
  • The front office sales and relationship team needs to be armed with the appropriate data to approach specific counterparties.
  • At a more senior level, managers need to understand how they can reduce capital consumption without negatively impacting business operation, by either eliminating or moving positions.

If nothing else, managers at all levels of the business should be able to better understand how their valuable capital resources are consumed and measure individual units against this critical metric. Increasingly, business units are being judged against a metric of capital consumption rather than just top-level performance. Particularly under SA-CCR, every dollar saved offers value.

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Announcing Recipients of Second Annual Capitolis Connects Donations

Announcing Recipients of Second Annual Capitolis Connects Donations

Last year, in recognition of the difficult times many people were experiencing during the pandemic, we established Capitolis Connects – a philanthropic effort to give back to the cities and neighborhoods in which we live and work.

While the world is gradually re-opening, it is important for us to continue to keep in mind those in our communities who still need our help. We are proud to support innovative and impactful local charities that are making a difference in the three cities that Capitolis calls “home.”

As we did in 2020, for the month of June 2021, we will donate 10% of all transactional revenue from our platform, in addition to individual donations by Capitolis employees. The donation will be split equally among the three local charities selected by our employees in New York, London, and Tel Aviv. This year’s charities are:

  • Covenant House, an organization offering housing and support services to young people in need in New York, currently reaching 50,000 youth each year.
  • Compliments of the House, a food redistribution charity in London that collects fresh, surplus food and gives it to vulnerable individuals and families.
  • Beit Issie Shapiro, Israel’s leading developer and provider of innovative therapies and state-of-the-art services for children and adults across the entire range of disabilities impacting over half a million people annually.

We hope you will be proud to know that a part of your spend with us in the month of June will be going to support these important organizations. Thank you for your continued support to this cause and our partnership.

To learn more about Capitolis Connects and the 2021 charities, CLICK HERE.

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Capitolis to Offer Optimization Solutions Through Refinitiv Trade Notification Network

Capitolis to Offer Optimization Solutions Through Refinitiv Trade Notification Network

Capitolis,the leading SaaS platform that drives financial resource optimization for capital markets, today announced an agreement with Refinitiv, one of the world’s largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure, to enable access to Capitolis’ next-generation suite of optimization products through Refinitiv’s Trade Notification platform.

The partnership will allow leading financial institutions that leverage Capitolis’ revolutionary, proprietary technology platform to streamline their processing of FX instruments including options, swaps, forwards, and Non-Deliverable Forwards (NDFs) through a seamless connection to Refinitiv’s infrastructure for post-trade services, enabling market participants to collaborate to achieve new operational, cost, speed, and scale efficiencies.

Capitolis enables firms to optimize their balance sheet exposures through collaborative technology by eliminating unnecessary positions and finding the most suitable party to hold the remaining positions. To date, Capitolis has eliminated more than $9 trillion in overall positions for more than 75 financial institutions, including many of the world’s largest banks, as well as leading hedge funds and asset managers.

Capitolis chose Refinitiv’s Trade Notification platform given its position as the leading network connecting participants in the FX market including trading venues, brokers, liquidity providers, ECNs, and banks with guaranteed delivery. Refinitiv’s Trade Notification platform offers an unparalleled geographic reach and a client-centric model geared towards fast integration.

“We look forward to continuing our relationship with the team at Refinitiv through this partnership that will deliver greater efficiency and more seamless connectivity for our clients,” said Tom Glocer, Executive Chairman and co-founder of Capitolis, as well as former CEO of Thomson Reuters.  “As the adoption of our proprietary technology platform expands across the industry, the need for continued innovation and collaboration is crucial. I have deep roots in and affection for both Capitolis and Refinitiv, and I believe this partnership will benefit both companies and our common clients, in particular.”

“This partnership expands the functionality of Refinitiv’s trade reporting tools, enabling greater transparency and helping to foster a smarter marketplace for all participants,” said Dean Berry, Group Head of Trading and Banking Solutions for Refinitiv. “At Refinitiv, we are always open to collaboration and pleased to welcome new publishers on our network such as Capitolis, whose collaborative platform is changing the ways in which financial institutions optimize their balance sheet exposure. Our focus is to serve our community on STP and increasingly in other initiatives such as this one, which add value to our clients.”

“We are pleased to continue our partnership with Capitolis and begin leveraging this product enhancement,” said Tobias Krause, Head of Global Markets Resource Management for State Street. “The new trade notification and transaction reporting tools will increase the efficiency of our optimization exercises, which directly increases State Street’s capacity to serve our clients.”

The announcement follows a year of record growth for Capitolis, including the recent announcements of a $90 million Series C funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, a partnership with AcadiaSoft, combining their risk analytics and repository of industrywide margin data with Capitolis’ proprietary technology platform, and a collaboration with CLS to streamline trading and settlement for banks in the $6.6 trillion global currency market.

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Capitolis Appoints Jen Vanderwall, Former Bridgewater Talent Executive, as Chief People and Culture Officer

Capitolis Appoints Jen Vanderwall, Former Bridgewater Talent Executive, as Chief People and Culture Officer

Capitolis, the leading SaaS platform that drives financial resource optimization for capital markets, today announced the appointment of Jen Vanderwall, former people and talent leader at Bridgewater Associates, as its Chief People and Culture Officer, amidst meaningful expansion and maturation.

The news of Vanderwall’s hire comes just weeks after Capitolis announced the completion of a $90 million Series C funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (“a16z”). As Chief People and Culture Officer, Vanderwall will be a key member of the executive team, charged with supporting the organization’s continued growth, emphasizing a dynamic culture combining innovation, collaboration, agility, and professionalism, and furthering Capitolis’ position as a premier global employer.

Vanderwall’s extensive experience in people and culture within financial services and work as an executive coach and human resources advisor are critical to support Capitolis’ success. She previously held leadership positions in human resources and talent at the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, where she was a member of the firm’s core management team. At Bridgewater, she partnered with the CEO and board to oversee all people functions, assessing the strategies, plans, and progress for culture, diversity and inclusion, human resources, recruiting, and talent. During her time at Bridgewater, she also served as Chief Operating Officer, Technology, Strategy, and Incubation. Prior to Bridgewater, she worked at Mastercard Worldwide, where she served as Vice President, Prepaid Products, and at Willis Towers Watson, where she was a Senior Consultant.

“At Capitolis, we are re-imagining capital markets and the future structure of the markets that are fairer, safer, and healthier for all,” said Gil Mandelzis, CEO and founder of Capitolis. “In order to deliver on our transformative mission, we are building a global company around a thoughtful and deliberate culture, and Jen is the perfect person to lead our efforts and strengthen that culture as we grow. She brings unique insight from her years of experience with some of the world’s greatest minds, and we are ecstatic to have her join the team at this critical time for Capitolis.”

“Gil has pulled together a top-notch team, and I’m excited to partner with them to further enhance Capitolis’ strong culture and expand and develop talent to achieve the company’s goals to transform the market,” said Vanderwall. “I am thrilled to join the team and support management and the board in building a long-standing, leading FinTech company.”

With the funds from its latest investment, Capitolis intends to drive further innovation in its technology and product development, bolster customer support and sales, and grow its team from 90 employees to over 150 by year’s end. The announcement of Vanderwall’s hire follows multiple strategic appointments over the past year, including James Kibbe as Head of Structured Funding Origination, Callie Reynolds as Chief Customer Officer, Hen Lotan and Lindsey Baptiste as Chief of Staff and SVP, Global Head of Finance, respectively, and Rahul Auradkar as Chief Product Officer.

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Catching Up with Capitolis – Index Ventures’ Jan Hammer & Gil Mandelzis Discuss the Reshaping of Capital Markets

Catching Up with Capitolis – Index Ventures’ Jan Hammer & Gil Mandelzis Discuss the Reshaping of Capital Markets

Capitolis has just secured $90m from investors including Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia and Spark. Index Ventures partner Jan Hammer, who led Capitolis’ Series A in 2018 and has been working with the team ever since, speaks to founder and CEO Gil Mandelzis. He asks him how the Capitolis fintech platform changes the dynamics in the market, what the regulators make of it, and why we need it in the first place.

CLICK HERE to watch the video.

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Capitolis Secures $90 Million in Series C Funding Round Led By Andreessen Horowitz

Capitolis Secures $90 Million in Series C Funding Round Led By Andreessen Horowitz

Revolutionary capital markets platform has raised $170 million to date from leading venture capital firms and some of the world’s largest global financial institutions.

Capitolis, the leading SaaS platform that drives financial resource optimization for capital markets, today announced it has closed a $90 million Series C funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (“a16z”), a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that backs transformational companies and bold entrepreneurs disrupting their industries with next-generation technology.

“We launched Capitolis four years ago to fundamentally re-imagine how the capital markets operate. Just as Airbnb has brought more capacity to the lodging industry, Capitolis is bringing meaningful additional balance sheet, capital and financing capacity to the market that is structurally and meaningfully constrained to create healthier, more vibrant and growing financial markets,” said Gil Mandelzis, CEO and founder of Capitolis. “The market’s acceptance and adoption of our friendly disruptive solutions have exceeded our brightest hopes, and we are thrilled to have this significant investment and support from the world’s top technology investors and leading financial institutions to grow and expand much faster.”

“What sets Capitolis apart from other financial services players is the sheer scale of management’s ambition and the substantial talent, technology and capital milestones they have achieved in bringing their innovative services to market,” said Alex Rampell, partner at a16z. “We are proud to support Capitolis through this period of rapid growth.”

The funding round, which included participation from existing investors Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, S Capital, Spark Capital, SVB Capital, Citi, J.P. Morgan and State Street, brings Capitolis’ total funding to date to $170 million.

Capitolis—which combines deep markets expertise with a Silicon Valley mindset—arms banks, asset managers and hedge funds across the market ecosystem with an innovative technology platform that allows them to free up capital and safely remove barriers that would otherwise restrict growth.

“The market has spoken. Capitolis is building the financial system of the future,” said Tom Glocer, co-founder and executive chairman of Capitolis. “With advanced technology, a talented team, a focus on operational excellence and the continued support of our trusted partners, I look forward to our ongoing progress.”

“At Citi, we have been impressed with Capitolis’ technology platform and their thoughtful, strategic approach to fostering a more efficient marketplace,” said Okan Pekin, Global Head of Securities Services at Citi. “We feel the opportunity in front of them is significant and there is a long runway for growth.”

Capitolis, which has a rapidly growing client base, intends to use the funds from this latest investment to drive further innovation in its technology and product development, bolster customer support and sales and grow its team from 90 employees to over 150 by year’s end.

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Capitolis Partners with AcadiaSoft to Enable Greater Capital Optimization for Financial Institutions

Capitolis Partners with AcadiaSoft to Enable Greater Capital Optimization for Financial Institutions

Capitolis, the leading SaaS platform that drives financial resource optimization for capital markets, today announced a partnership with AcadiaSoft, the leading industry provider of risk and collateral management services for the derivatives community. The partnership combines AcadiaSoft’s risk analytics and repository of industrywide margin data with Capitolis’ proprietary technology platform, which will enable greater capital optimization for financial institutions.

The solution will allow financial institutions to eliminate large and unnecessary positions and find the most suitable party to hold the remaining positions. This offering will enable firms to more efficiently allocate their capital—as required by the evolving regulatory landscape—and has the potential to materially impact returns on capital, market liquidity, and access to markets.

“We are thrilled to partner with AcadiaSoft to create an industrywide solution for capital optimization, during an inflection point for collaboration among financial institutions,” said Gil Mandelzis, CEO and Founder of Capitolis. “AcadiaSoft’s status as a leader in risk management solutions and its suite of analytics services makes the firm an ideal partner for us in our mission to make the marketplace fairer, safer and healthier for all participants.”

Chris Walsh, CEO of AcadiaSoft, said, “Capitolis is reimagining how the capital markets operate. We have been working with their innovative team for a while and are excited to collaborate with a company that shares our vision for enhancing market efficiency and capital consumption for the market in a rapidly changing operating environment.”

The impact of upcoming regulations like SA-CCR (Standard Approach to Counterparty Credit Risk) will have a major effect on the capitalization of financial institutions. This partnership brings together two leading firms with a shared commitment to drive down costs in the industry. AcadiaSoft’s recent acquisition of Quaternion, a specialist risk management firm, further deepens the expertise of this unique partnership to develop services that firms will be able to deploy to gain immediate and lasting optimization results.

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Why Are FX Traders Shifting Their Attention to Capital Efficiency?

Why Are FX Traders Shifting Their Attention to Capital Efficiency?

For firms to compete, they must optimize the amount of capital held in reserve against their FX trades. Capitolis CEO Gil Mandelzis and President Justin Klug recently spoke with Terry Flanagan from Markets Media about how technology can help institutional FX trading firms create trade and capital efficiency to drive better returns.

Mandelzis and Klug discuss how Capitolis’ suite of optimization tools gives financial institutions more control, with sophisticated algorithms that constantly scan for opportunity and the ability to seamlessly perform on-demand, real-time compressions, and novations. They also consider how new regulations, such as SA-CCR, which will adjust current models for measuring exposure at default for counterparty credit risk, might create more demand for compressing notional to optimize balance sheets.

To read the full article in Markets Media, CLICK HERE.

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Terry Flanagan

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Capitolis Hires Industry Veteran James Kibbe as Head of Structured Funding Origination

Capitolis Hires Industry Veteran James Kibbe as Head of Structured Funding Origination

Capitolis, the leading SaaS platform that drives financial resource optimization for capital markets, today announced the appointment of James Kibbe as Head of Structured Funding Origination, amidst growing industrywide adoption of the company’s solutions among leading financial institutions.

In this role, Kibbe will lead the origination and execution of a suite of opportunities for banks, asset managers, hedge funds, and insurers that will enable these firms to address some of their biggest challenges, including capital, funding, and balance sheet needs, across asset classes.

Before joining Capitolis, Kibbe – a 25-year industry veteran – was a Managing Director at HSBC where he served in a variety of roles including Head of Rates, Repo/Derivative Financing; Co-Head of Institutional Sales for the Americas; and Head of Macro Sales. Under his leadership, HSBC’s UST cash trading business grew its market share to become a top three firm. He also built out the bank’s collateralized/derivatives finance franchise, working closely with the bank’s clients to identify and address their structured financing challenges, among other achievements. Prior to his tenure at HSBC, he served as Managing Director, Head of US Rates Sales, for UBS AG.

“In a short period of time, Capitolis has achieved a tremendous amount of success in developing an innovative technology platform designed to tackle financial institutions’ main challenges within structured finance,” said Kibbe. “I look forward to joining this amazing team who shares my passion for bringing to life the next generation of the market.”

“The market has undergone a significant transformation over the past year in terms of how financial institutions utilize their balance sheets and the resulting implications for capital and financial returns,” said Justin Klug, president of Capitolis. “We are delighted that someone of Jim’s caliber is joining Capitolis to lead the charge in addressing this critical need and take our structured solutions offering to the next level.”

Kibbe’s appointment follows a string of strategic new hires for Capitolis in recent months, including Callie Reynolds as Chief Customer Officer, Evelina Rosenstein as Head of Business Development, Hen Lotan, and Lindsey Baptiste as Chief of Staff and Head of Finance respectively, and Rahul Auradkar as Chief Product Officer.

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Capitolis

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Managing UMR Phase 5 With Trade Optimization and Margin Reduction

Managing UMR Phase 5 With Trade Optimization and Margin Reduction

Capitolis global head of sales Ben Tobin joined a panel of experts at TradeTech FX US to focus on Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR). He discussed why institutions should look beyond pure preparedness to optimizing and reducing the amount of margin they must exchange.

The panel examined how the September 2021 Phase 5 of UMR will impact FX prime brokerage, particularly with regards to operational costs and market access. Panelists discussed who and what is in scope as AANA thresholds drop, why pre-and post-trade optimization will become more important, and how technology can help drive efficiencies across trading and operations to maximize financial resources.

CLICK HERE to watch the full discussion.

Panel Discussion: How will UMR phase 5 impact prime brokerage, cost pressures and market access and how can you leverage innovations in technology to turn this update into your competitive advantage?

Moderator: Michael Koegler, Managing Principal, Market Alpha Advisors

Speakers:
Van Luu, Global Head of Currency, Russell Investments
Victoria Cumings, MD, Americas, Global FX Division, GFMA
Ben Tobin, SVP, Global Head of Sales, Capitolis
Basu Choudhury, Senior Director, CME Group Traiana
Vinod Jain, Senior Analyst, Aite Group

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TradeTech FX US

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Capitolis collaborates with world’s leading FX settlement provider CLS

Capitolis collaborates with world’s leading FX settlement provider CLS

Capitolis, the leading SaaS platform that drives financial resource optimization for capital markets, today announced a collaboration with CLS, a market infrastructure delivering settlement, processing and data solutions for the global FX market, that will integrate CLS’ data with Capitolis’ proprietary technology platform to streamline trading and settlement for banks in the $6.6 trillion global currency market.

The collaboration will allow financial institutions using Capitolis’ real-time technology platform to identify the best optimization opportunities, eliminate large and unnecessary positions and free up capital. These added efficiencies have the potential to materially affect returns on capital, market pricing, overall reduction of systemic risk and more.

Against a backdrop of more stringent capital requirements and the implementation of additional regulation, financial institutions’ ability to leverage innovative and effective optimization services is invaluable as these firms continue to seek to enhance their balance sheets, not just in the rapidly evolving FX market, but all global markets.

Gil Mandelzis, CEO and founder of Capitolis, said, “Capitolis brings a novel approach to the market, delivered through innovative technology. We are building a growing community of financial institutions that will allow these firms to collaborate and optimize their financial resources. Our alliance with CLS, one of the most trusted and formidable market infrastructures, will help us to create new opportunities for collaboration and move us closer to achieving our vision – to make markets safer, healthier and more efficient.”

Keith Tippell, Global Head of Product at CLS, said, “Our unique position at the center of the FX market enables us to collaborate with specialized service providers, like Capitolis, resulting in solutions that provide choice and flexibility for our clients and make the trading environment more efficient, safer and cost effective. We are excited to collaborate with the Capitolis team, providing CLS trade data and enabling improved capital efficiencies and significantly reducing risk for market participants.”

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