London, 18 January 2021 

Digital Debt Capital Markets Ltd (DDCM or “agora”), announces the appointment of Filippo Mattia Ginanni as its Head of Structured Products and EMTNs.  Prior to joining agora, Filippo was Head of Cross Asset Structuring at Mediobanca.  Prior to joining Mediobanca, he spent ten years at Deutsche Bank where his last role was Head of the Securitised Retail Products platform (X-Markets) for Italy.

DDCM is developing software to enable truly end-to-end digital support for the entire life cycle of financial products such as bonds and structured products through the deployment of its *agoraSoftware. This technology can be applied to a variety of financial products which require multiple service providers for both their issuance and life cycle management, improving communication and processes. *agoraSoftware will be used by issuers, arrangers and service providers: from the pre-mandate stage, through execution, pricing, primary settlement, and throughout the secondary life of the security until its final redemption. 

Charlie Berman, co-founder and CEO of DDCM said:

“We are delighted Filippo is joining agora whose goal is to provide collaborative solutions to improve the processes, which have not fundamentally changed in decades, that support the entire life cycle of bonds and structured products.  Filippo is a highly respected banker who brings to our company a deep knowledge and understanding of structured products and an already keen appreciation of how the new technologies will benefit existing markets.  His experience and insight will ensure we identify and create the best and most innovative solutions for our customers.”

Filippo Mattia Ginanni, agora’s new Head of Structured Products and EMTNs said,

“I am very excited to be joining the team at agora Digital Capital Markets. agora is developing unique innovative technological solutions capable of revolutionising processes across all structured products, throughout their entire life-cycle.”

About Digital Debt Capital Markets Ltd

DDCM is a UK based techfin company, providing technology to enhance, upgrade and improve communication and processes for bonds and structured products from issuance to repayment at its term. It is developing software to enable, for the first time, truly end-to-end digital support for the entire life cycle of a bond and structured products through the deployment of its *agoraSoftware. This technology which leverages private, confidential and permissioned Distributed Ledger technology (R3’s Corda Enterprise) and the application of Smart Contracts will enhance, upgrade and improve communication and processes from a bond’s issuance to repayment at its term. The *agoraSoftware will be used by issuers, arrangers and multiple service providers to the international bond and structured products markets, from the pre-mandate stage, during execution, pricing and primary settlement and throughout the secondary life of the security until its final redemption.

-ENDS-

For further information, please contact:

Simon Eaton

Tel: +44 (0)7879 617802

Notes to editors

Digital Debt Capital Markets *agoraPlatform*

DDCM is developing software to enable, for the first time, truly end-to-end digital support for the entire life cycle of a bond and structured product through the deployment of its *agoraSoftware*.  This technology will enhance, upgrade and improve communication and processes from issuance to repayment at term. The agora software will be used by issuers, arrangers and multiple service providers to the international bond and structured products markets, from the pre-mandate stage, during execution, pricing and primary settlement and throughout the secondary life of the security until its final redemption.

Today, communication of critical information for a bond and structured product involves the use of multiple channels including voice, the emailing of Word documents, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets and chat rooms. Many of the existing key processes have not fundamentally changed for several decades. The transmission of information in these ways creates numerous points where participants manually input the same data, creating different siloed versions of the same material, which require subsequent and repeated reconciliation. The *agoraSoftware* will connect bond and structured products market participants providing a single version of critical information capable of being used digitally by all participants for their respective processes avoiding the need for manual input and duplication.   This is achieved through the application of the latest digital technologies within the *agoraSoftware* which streamline and standardise information flow to provide far more efficient, confidential and secure management of the communications between bond market participants.

As the *agoraSoftware* evolves, it will usher in an era of smart digital securities that will be able to perform and regulate many of their own functions, leading to the next step in the evolution of these financial products. DDCM will introduce better products and enhanced market efficiency for all bond and structured product market participants and the promise of higher levels of straight through processing for downstream service providers.

It will further provide regulatory-transparent and immutable records.  These will be able to meet the current and future requirements of the post global financial crisis regulatory framework in both the pre and post trade environment.  

The business was co-founded by bond market veterans Charlie Berman and Naveed Nasar.  Charlie has been originating and executing bond issues since the 1980s. He was most recently the Chairman of Debt Capital Markets at Barclays having previously held senior roles in fixed income at Salomon Bros and Citigroup and has close and long-standing relationships with many of the world’s most prolific bond issuers. Naveed worked at JP Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC in both origination and back office functions. Other co-founders include nearly 25-year Slaughter & May Partner, Dermot Rice; former head of development at Marketpipe and CTO of Europe at Ipreo, Tony Cleverley; and former M&A banker and tech investor, Yassamin Issapour. Together they have deep expertise on the full life cycle of a bond’s journey from inception to redemption, and represent markets, legal/regulatory and technology knowledge.