Peer-to-peer securities lending platform launches
A FINTECH start-up has launched the industry’s first peer-to-peer securities lending platform, called Aquila Network.
SBL Network, founded in 2016, said it created the platform to meet growing demand for greater transparency in the securities lending marketplace.
It enables institutional equity owners such as pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds to negotiate and lend directly to hedge funds.
Participants can negotiate transactions and get access to anonymous pricing data.
Aquila Network is currently trialling the system on a closed circuit basis and anticipates starting live operations with its first third-party clients before the end of this year.
The launch came after SBL raised £1m via two Enterprise Investment Scheme-qualifying funding rounds.
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Peter Fenichel, founder and chairman of SBL, claimed the securities lending market is ready to accept a “significant structural change” allowing direct interaction between participants.
He said clients will have access to “a truly innovative means of arranging P2P securities lending transactions within a secure environment”.
Fenichel is the former chief executive of Instinet Fixed Income Markets.
He is joined by David Hardy, former chief executive of LCH.Clearnet; Marc Gerstein, former executive vice president of strategy at Instinet; and, subject to regulatory approval, SBL chief executive Tammy Phillips who was previously with Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital.
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