Capitolis, the leading provider of SaaS and structured financing products that address balance sheet management for financial institutions, announced that Novations, its foreign exchange novation platform, achieved a record transaction volume of more than $959 billion in notional for FX options novations during the first quarter ended April 30, 2021, more than doubling the volume from a year earlier.
Many financial institutions expanded their positions in the FX market during the periods of volatility brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, and they turned to the Capitolis platform to open them up to further opportunities in the market without adding risk. Trading volumes continue to hold at record highs, making the demand for Capitolis’ analytics and tools stronger than ever across both buy side and sell side institutions.
“The Capitolis platform is a truly groundbreaking technology that enables the world’s leading prime brokers, executing banks, hedge funds, and money managers to more effectively interact and manage their balance sheets, unlocking the potential to completely transform how firms trade with one another,” said Ben Tobin, Senior Vice President, Global Head of FX at Capitolis. “The growth of Novations over the past year has been tremendous, and we look forward to continually expanding to support our existing and prospective clients with solutions that meet their complex balance sheet needs.”
In addition to achieving record volumes, Capitolis has added 11 clients to the Novations platform since August. These new clients, across both the buy and sell side, complement a growing roster of more than 75 leading global financial institutions currently active on the Novations platform, including NatWest, Citi, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Nomura, and Societe Generale. Since its inception nearly three years ago, Capitolis Novations has eliminated positions of more than $4.6 trillion in notional.
To support the growth of Novations, Capitolis has added key features for an improved user experience, including enhanced functionalities that simplify the movement of FX instruments between prime brokers and the larger marketplace, and advanced analytics on the status of all pending and completed novations.
The growth of Capitolis’ Novations platform follows the recent completion of a $90 million Series C funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Capitolis further bolstered its positioning in the FX space earlier this year, announcing a partnership with leading FX settlement provider CLS to streamline trading and settlement for banks in the $6.6 trillion global currency market.
Source: Capitolis
