FinOptSys, a new financial resources, collateral and balance sheet optimisation platform, incorporating ‘true’ peer-to-peer trading functionality, has come to market promising a ‘cradle-to-grave’ offering that tackles a host of securities finance transaction pain points.
FinOptSys was formed 18 months ago and has recently completed the technology build of its cloud-based, software-as-a-service platform that currently boasts 30 independent modules, each addressing a feature of the market, including repo and securities lending.
The fintech primarily bills itself as a pre-trade analytics service provider that promises to highlight asset inefficiencies within a client’s balance sheet and suggest opportunities to adjust sub-optimal collateral baskets or re-rate trades, among several other functions.
The aim, FinOptSys says, is to free up front-office human capital from mundane administrative tasks and allow traders to focus on technical, high-yield opportunities, by arming them with patent-pending quantitative intelligent algorithms.
A peer-to-peer module also allows users to negotiate legal contracts as well as negotiate trades, with seamless connectivity to execution and post trade service providers of choice.
The platform is currently in beta testing with several clients.
The fintech was co-founded by Anand Krishnan and Divyesh Bhakta, who serve as co-CEOs.
Krishnan brings more than two decades of capital market experience and most recently operated as head of North Americas, global securities finance, for Natixis.
Bhakta most recently served as co-head of cross asset financing distribution at Bank of Montreal where he worked with pension plans, insurance companies and global asset managers.
FinOptSys’ boilerplate says it was borne out of clients’ demand for efficient, transparent, analytics and customised cross asset utilisation solutions, for financial resources deployed in the global securities finance market.
According to its management, the platform is user agnostic and its plethora of treasury functionality alone can offer significant cost savings to both buy and sell-side participants.
FinOptSys is backed by John Stracquadanio and Kevin Felix, both of whom held senior management positions within Scotiabank before leaving to form venture capital firm Appia Ventures.
Stracquadanio sits on the board of directors, while Felix sits on FinOptSys’ advisory board alongside Gary Rupert, former CEO of Scotia Capital (USA), Gordon Clark, a professorial fellow at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and environmental, social and governance expert, and Diane Brokenshire, global head of human resources at Standard Chartered Bank, who brings expertise in building culture, diversity and inclusion.
They are joined by Art Certosimo, another industry titan, who currently sits on the boards of LTX, a Broadridge company, and South Street Securities, a US brokerage firm.
FinOptSys recently closed its seconded funding round led by Appia Ventures, which was oversubscribed and led it to increase its total capital raising by 40 per cent.
Bhakta says prospective investors were not only impressed by how quickly FinOptSys created a fully-functioning platform but also by the comprehensive, modular and fully customisable nature of the offering.
FinOptSys also has an extensive pipeline of future modules slated for release in the medium term including more data analytics and post trade optimisation services.
