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Digital Debt Capital Markets (“DDCM” or agora) today announces it has selected enterprise software firm R3 to provide the underlying blockchain technology for DDCM’s agora platform. The agora software will leverage R3’s Corda Enterprise to provide the first end-to-end digital service to manage the entire life cycle of a bond.
agora will enhance, upgrade and improve communication and processes from a bond’s issuance to repayment at its term. The agora software, utilising Corda Enterprise as a key component, will be made available to issuers, arrangers and multiple service providers to the international bond markets. It will assist all these participants in the bond market processes from the pre-mandate stage, through execution, pricing and primary settlement, on through life into the secondary market, all the way to final redemption.
Corda Enterprise – the commercial distribution of R3’s Corda platform - has been selected as it has been specifically designed for the exacting standards of the highly regulated financial services market. These demand quality of service, speed, security, stability and confidentiality. In addition, Corda Enterprise provides interoperability, scalability, controlled access to information for authenticity, and the permissioned traceability of a bond, including its ownership and other criteria.
DDCM is already collaborating with major issuers, investment banks and critical service providers, to ensure correct functionality to promote network effect and encourage wide adoption. Many of these global and regional investment banks are already investors and members of R3. This, combined with the growing Corda developer community, creates a user ecosystem well placed to be early adopters of agora given the interoperability of Corda Enterprise platform.
Charlie Berman, Chief Executive Officer at DDCM said,
“Today the bond market operates with multiple data siloes requiring repetitive manual inputs of the same information and continuous reconciliation. We are building a business with Corda Enterprise Distributed Ledger Technology as a central component to digitally service all the participants in the bond market throughout the life cycle of a bond. Corda provides, confidential, scalable, interoperable, permissioned, blockchain technology allowing us to work collaboratively to join these data siloes together improving functionality, efficiency and service and greatly improving levels of straight through processing. These technologies have allowed us to create solutions for the existing inefficiencies in the bond market, but also pave the way for SmartBonds capable of performing their own functions.”
David E. Rutter, Chief Executive Officer at R3, said:
“We are already seeing blockchain drive innovation across industries for which integrity of information is paramount. This is evident in the technology’s role in differentiating users, ensuring privacy to control access and authenticity for traceability. We are proud to partner with agora as they seek to bring improvements to the bond issuance process and bring much needed efficiencies across the wider market. ”
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Notes to editors

1. DDCM announced in November 2019 the successful closing of a £2.5m seed capital fund raise to develop its technology. Significant investors include Michael Spencer, the founder of ICAP and financial technology specialist.
2. DDCM is developing its technology to connect issuers, arrangers, lawyers and multiple bond market service providers - including custodians, central securities depositories (CSDs & ICSDs), issuing and paying agents (IPAs) – and provide a single version of critical information for each bond 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 which streamline and standardise information flow to provide far more efficient, confidential and secure management of the communications between bond market participants.
3. DDCM is collaborating with major issuers, investment banks, investors and critical service providers to ensure correct functionality and encourage wide adoption.
4. 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. Together they have deep expertise on the full life cycle of a bond’s journey from inception to redemption.

About R3
R3 is an enterprise blockchain software firm working with a global ecosystem of more than 300 participants across multiple industries from both the private and public sectors to develop on Corda, its open-source blockchain platform, and Corda Enterprise, a commercial version of Corda for enterprise usage. R3’s global team of over 200 professionals in 13 countries is supported by over 2,000 technology, financial, and legal experts drawn from its vibrant ecosystem. The Corda platform is already being used in industries from financial services to healthcare, shipping, insurance and more. It records, manages and executes institutions’ financial agreements in perfect synchrony with their peers, creating a world of frictionless commerce. Learn more at www.r3.com and www.corda.net

For more information on agora, please visit our website: https://agoradcm.com/#/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/agoradcm
For further information, please contact:
Simon Eaton
Tel: +44 (0)7879 617802

R3:
Catherine Day
[email protected]
07956812436