Origin, the London-based fintech digitising debt capital markets, has been announced as the winner of two awards at the 2022 GlobalCapital Bond Awards, which are recognised as the pre-eminent awards for performance in the international bond markets. The winners are chosen directly by market participants, with issuers, investment banks, investors and more invited to choose the nominee they find most impressive in each category.

Origin has been awarded Best Fintech for Primary Market Operations (SSA) for the second year in a row and has been chosen as the winner of a newly created category, Best Fintech for Primary Market Operations (FIG).

Origin is on a mission to be the leading digital ecosystem for fixed-income capital markets globally. With the aim of bringing simplicity to the bond market, Origin is pioneering change in an industry where innovation has historically lagged. The international bond market relies upon decades-old infrastructure, siloed systems, and a tangled web of email chains, which makes issuance expensive, time-consuming, and inefficient.

Raja Palaniappan, CEO and co-founder of Origin, said: “We are proud and humbled to be recognised for the second year in a row by market participants – our customers – for delivering meaningful value to them with our products and technology. Too often, the promise of technology gets lost in the hype cycle, which leaves people frustrated and disillusioned when it fails to deliver. We are constantly working to separate hype from reality, so it’s an incredibly proud moment to be recognised by our most important stakeholders – our clients.

As a business, we are unrelenting in our mission to innovate and catalyse digitalisation in the capital markets. We’re at a pivotal moment in the debt capital markets innovation cycle. We believe the industry is at a real inflexion point, on the cusp of realising the true potential of technology transformation, and we are pleased to be the leading organisation driving that change.”

Origin has developed the largest ecosystem of market participants (issuers and dealers) seeking to participate in digital capital markets and will be the first and only global issuance platform with connectivity to clearing and listing infrastructure around the world. The company closed a $7 million Series A round at the end of 2020, led by Clearstream and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, which brought total funding to $10 million. Last year, Origin also launched Airbrush, a universal data standard for bond issuance, and an “instant ISIN” feature to allow automated allocation to Eurobonds from frequent issuers, both in partnership with Clearstream (the Luxembourg Stock Exchange also supported Airbrush).

Origin connects market participants with market infrastructure to digitise and automate the bond issuance process from origination through to settlement and maturity. By digitising workflow, automating legal docs, and structuring data, Origin reduces the cost of issuing a bond by up to 90%. Origin has launched three products since launch. Its end-to-end suite includes Origin Marketplace, which brings together investment banks and frequent borrowers to identify issuance opportunities; Origin Documentation, which automates legal document creation (such as term sheets, final terms, and accession letters); and Origin Post-Trade which allows straight-through-processing of transactions by sending data to third parties through APIs.