Fintech company Capitolis announced today that it has launched an innovative futures porting solution in collaboration with Barclays and Citadel.

The solution has been developed for futures market participants, including hedge funds, asset managers, other buy-side institutions, and Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs), and allows for scalability and greater management of financial resources.

Trading firms that use multiple FCMs are looking to continuously optimize their financial resources, which today takes up significant time and resource due to the manual workflow. The Capitolis Futures Porting solution significantly streamlines and automates this workflow, adding speed and transparency to the process while increasing capacity.

The first version of the Futures Porting solution is already live, with Citadel and other buy-side firms using it regularly to facilitate position transfers with Barclays and other FCMs. As the product ramps up, Capitolis continues to work closely with the market to introduce additional functionality to further simplify and standardize the workflow for both FCMs and buy-side participants.

“We were approached by the industry for a solution that addresses the growing need for futures porting and responded immediately,” said Gil Mandelzis, CEO and Founder of Capitolis. “I am thrilled that we were able to go live with the first version of the product within six months, collaborating closely with Barclays and Citadel (along with other market participants) in designing and rolling out the optimal solution. Over the next few months, we will introduce additional functionality and go live with more market participants on both the buy- and sell-side.”

“We are committed to driving industry enhancements across all Liquid Financing post trade workflows, and this FCM initiative is a further opportunity to innovate and improve our clients’ experience,” said Craig Robertson, Head of Barclays Capital Inc. FCM. “Capitolis continues to be a strong partner for us in this journey.”

“Capitolis empowers firms to mitigate operational risk while enhancing capital efficiency through the automation of the futures porting process,” said Jamie Clayton, Head of EMEA and APAC Operations at Citadel. “It’s a strategic advantage in today’s capital markets.”

In 2018, Capitolis announced the launch of an automated novation service in foreign exchange (FX), also a first of its kind. The innovation of an automated futures porting service provides a similar market benefit, introducing technology that makes the process more scalable and will help the futures market grow.

On the back of this announcement and the continued collaboration between Barclays and Capitolis, Capitolis is also announcing both a strategic investment in the company from Barclays and the addition of a Barclays representative to its Board of Directors.

“We’re pleased to support the ongoing development of innovative products by Capitolis, and this investment further cements the collaboration between our firms,” said Kester Keating, Head of US Principal Investments at Barclays.