Clearstream, an international central securities depository which is part of Deutsche Börse Group, and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange today announced a Series A investment in London-based fintech Origin.

The partnership will focus on the automation of the bond issuance process from origination through to settlement. The Luxembourg Stock Exchange acquired an initial stake in Origin in 2019 and will be following-on in this round.

The investment transaction is poised to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory approval and further customary closing conditions.

The partners explain that, nowadays, the debt issuance process implies a heavy operational burden due to time-consuming manual work and lack of automation. This, in turn leads to significant duplicate workload across the processing chain. The initial focus of the partnership will be on Eurobonds with the aim to expand the offering to also cover other asset classes in the future.

The capital raised in this Series A financing round will be used to explore the partners’ joint vision of creating an end-to-end, open access, straight-through digital process for issuance, settlement and listing of debt instruments. This aims to further integrate Origin’s products into the existing capital markets ecosystem.

Jens Hachmeister, Head of Issuer Services & New Digital Markets at Clearstream, commented: “The lack of automation in bond issuance takes up a tremendous amount of resources and hampers issuers’ capacities to adopt more flexible funding strategies. We have been approached by clients in this regard to support them in further streamlining their workflows. In Origin, we have found an innovative and experienced partner to do just that.”