Transcend enables capital markets firms to optimize collateral, funding and liquidity through innovative technology.
Notable partners and collaborators: Wells Fargo
Global Custodian interviewed Transcend founder Bimal Kadikar in February this year and discovered the story behind the start-up establish in 2013. He explained how – during his time at Citi where he led an initiative called CLM [collateral, liquidity, and margin] – he came across an opportunity to do something entrepreneurial after spotting gaps in collateral processes and disconnections between teams. This was leaving potential savings on the table.
“As you know, at that time [2008/2009] liquidity was a very, very big deal for many of the large players,” he explained. “The work that we did on that with a relatively small budget and in a relatively short timeframe went all the way to the board. That was surprising, because in big banks, unless you’re spending a billion dollars on technology, the board doesn’t really see these things. Here we were spending less than $2 million and our work was going to the board. I knew then we were onto something and I guess the techie in me always wanted to do something entrepreneurial.
“With Transcend, we always knew we wanted to focus on this space, which was evolving rapidly. It was very confusing, everybody had different ideas about where it was going to go. That’s where I got excited, because it is complex, it’s difficult and it cuts across silos.”
Regulatory and economic factors post-financial crisis have imposed much stricter requirements for clearing as well as collateralising uncleared transactions to de-risk the financial system.
These drivers have resulted in convergence of collateralised businesses such as equity finance, fixed income repos, cleared (CCP) margin, uncleared (UMR) margin, and prime – to name a few – to coordinate with each other to drive efficiencies at the firm level.
While each of these businesses has an operating platform and set of systems, it is difficult for firms to holistically view collateral, liquidity and funding dimensions across all of them. As a result, valuable collateral may be trapped in silos resulting in significant real and opportunity costs for the firm.
Transcend says its own client experiences indicate that there is 10-15 bp of efficiencies that can be unlocked if firms can mobilise these assets for appropriate uses. The fintech looks to helps its clients by providing analytics, optimisation and automation solutions that can be applied at a business level and scaled across the enterprise.
“This space (intersection of margin, collateral, liquidity & funding) is undergoing a series of changes, from greater transparency and wider adoption of optimisation tools to a growing reliance on data and the emergence of ESG,” the firm tells Global Custodian. “Amidst all of these changes, Transcend has positioned itself at the centre, setting the industry-wide standard for optimising inventory, funding and liquidity decisions and delivering unparalleled innovation for both the buy and sell-side.
To accelerate and realise its mission, Transend has grown its team 35% over the past 12 months, including hires with backgrounds at Morgan Stanley, FIS and CME.
There have also been a number of launches such as the industry’s first optimisation solution that holistically and seamlessly integrates ESG criteria into collateral workflows and analytics and Eligibility Central, an end-to-end platform that delivers access to real-time collateral eligibility information and analytics that empowers clients to accelerate critical collateral functionality, such as optimisation and mobilisation.
Please refer the actual publication here: Global Custodian 2022
Transcend looks to meet its new buy side goals with its suite of products
Jeff Kidwell – Sales Director North America talks to Global Investor Magazine on Transcends Buy Side strategy for 2023. Helping clients gain better risk management and revenue production through Transcend’s tailored suite of products.
One of Transcend’s focal points for the next year will be to engage more with buy-side firms, the New Jersey-based firm has said.
Jeff Kidwell, director of sales for North America told Global Investor the securities finance space is more focussed than ever on collateral, funding and liquidity optimisation.
He said: “When it comes to Transcend priorities for 2023, first the company is going to be focusing on the penetration into the buy-side, and the aim is to help clients gain better risk management and revenue production through this greater visibility, better decision making and better execution with this tailored suite of Transcend technology products.”
The second aspect the firm will be concentrating on is aligning interoperability with the growing complexities and costs associated with collateral management and centralising decision-making capabilities for these clients.
“We want to move away from the traditional siloed decision-making, a trend that has been emerging lately, particularly on the buy-side,” said Kidwell.
“Transcend also aims to mitigate the growing complexities and costs that firms are facing, including the use of cash collateral and margin across various venues and rising triparty and central counterparty clearing house costs. This will help clients manage inflation, market volatility and all the regulatory challenges such as T+1 for greater portfolio returns,” he added.
The firm additionally intends to expand its global footprint in 2023 across many business lines, Kidwell said.
He said: “We intend to grow in Europe, Canada, and expand Asian customer base as well. There is a growing appetite for collateral optimisation tools in these markets so it’s a great opportunity for us to expand our business. I have joined Transcend amidst significant growth of both its client base and its team and there is heightening demand for its modular and customisable solution.”
Finally, in terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects, Transcend is one of the first companies to launch a solution that seamlessly incorporates ESG criteria into collateral workflows, according to Kidwell.
“Our highly flexible suite, which includes our eligibility product are able to incorporate ESG and this is something we will continue to build upon into 2023,” he concluded.
For Original Publication: Interview with Global Investor
Transcend Raises $10 Million to Meet Surge in Demand for Optimization of Collateralized Businesses
Transcend, a leader in business optimization for financial firms, has closed its Series A financing, limiting the raise to $10 million after over-subscription by potential investors. The financing round was led by Nyca Partners, a leading fintech venture capital firm, with support from a major global custodian bank. Proceeds will be used to rapidly scale product and sales infrastructure to meet growing demand from Transcend’s client base, which has more than doubled in the past two years to include 10 of the world’s largest banks and brokerage firms.
Transcend’s rapid growth corresponds to a sharp increase in collateralized businesses looking to more efficiently deploy cash and securities across their firms. This is particularly important given a series of recent capital, liquidity and regulatory drivers, such as the uncleared margin rules for bilateral derivatives trading. These changes require significant upgrades in the capabilities and infrastructure of many firms, such as connecting siloed internal platforms and developing critical common capabilities, to remain competitive and compliant.
“Our investors and clients share our vision for industry transformation,” said Bimal Kadikar, CEO of Transcend. “As a team, we are not alone in believing that analytics, optimization and automation can provide a significant competitive advantage for firms’ funding and liquidity challenges. This investment will enable us to accelerate our global ambition and target our solutions across a range of sell-side and buy-side stakeholders.”
“We’ve been impressed by the strategic thinking of Bimal and the Transcend team for many years, especially in developing solutions for complex business areas like collateral and funding optimization. We are convinced that Transcend’s innovative solutions will deliver large-scale benefits for financial firms and will help them improve their competitiveness.” said Hans Morris, managing partner at Nyca.
Transcend was formed in 2013 by seasoned financial executives to make collateral and liquidity management at banks and counterparties more profitable and efficient. Its scalable technology works with a firm’s existing infrastructure to address specific business-level or enterprise-wide challenges.
ABOUT TRANSCEND
Transcend is a leading provider of optimization solutions for collateralized businesses. With a growing roster of world-class banks and other financial institutions as clients, the firm is poised to become the gold standard for the real-time, firm-wide management of inventory, funding and liquidity. With more than 75 employees globally, Transcend addresses an array of regulatory and capital challenges that are facing the industry with a user-friendly, SaaS-based or on-prem collateral and liquidity management platform. For more information, visit transcendstreet.com.
Transcend discusses record year and 2021 growth plans with Global Investor
The last 18 months have been a period of tremendous growth and innovation for Transcend. We’ve doubled our client base, launched a sophisticated new optimization framework and made 31 new hires. Transcend also plans to open an EU office in 2021 to meet the increasing demand we’re receiving.
Our CEO Bimal Kadikar spoke with Oliver Wade at Global Investor Group about the Company’s recent success: https://bit.ly/3nGRiql
Introducing the new Transcend logo for our dynamic business
When we launched Transcend a few years ago, we knew that we would be bringing something unique and innovative to the market. Indeed, we have developed a cutting-edge solution to enable firms to optimize their inventory, liquidity and funding – whether that be for just one of their collateralized businesses or their entire enterprise. Our solutions have helped firms increase efficiency, improve regulatory reporting and reduce costs – all while delivering better services to their own clients.
But this is just the beginning. Our philosophy is focused on delivering constant innovation. Markets move fast; our clients’ needs quickly evolve; their customers’ demands increase. So at Transcend, we strive to always stay ahead of these cycles and anticipate future needs of our clients and the next industry pressures. Working closely with our customers, combined with the deep experience of our team, has helped us to achieve a strong foundation and a high level of momentum and growth.
So, what does this have to do with our new logo? Just like our business and technology are always moving forward, so should our brand. We updated our logo, not by starting over, but keeping the core essence of what our logo depicts: flexible technology solutions that help you move forward and upward. Then we refreshed the font and colors to ensure that our logo represents a modern, progressive and vibrant company that is truly delivering next-generation technology solutions that are helping to solve our clients’ challenges – both small and large.
We are excited for what the future holds and what we will continue to deliver to the industry. We hope that you will join us on this journey so that we can help you take advantage of the best technology solution to meet your needs for optimization and achieve your business goals. There are some exciting news and milestones to share with you in the coming weeks, so please connect with us.
See more of our new branding on our updated website. As always, please feel free to get in touch with us. We welcome your comments, questions and the chance to have a conversation.
Transcend Hires Former CTO of ENSO Financial
Kayur Parekh to lead expansion of Transcend’s technology for the buy-side
NEW YORK, NY (January 24, 2020) – Transcend, a leading provider of real-time collateral and liquidity optimization technology, has hired Kayur Parekh to join Transcend’s technology leadership team. He will focus on accelerating Transcend solutions and capabilities on the cloud and refining the solutions for the buy-side. Parekh brings more than 18 years of technology and financial markets experience.
Before joining Transcend, Parekh was Chief Technology Officer at ENSO Financial, a leading SaaS-based solution company providing insights and analytics to the buy-side and prime brokers. At ENSO, Parekh spearheaded the technology transformation of the next generation of ENSO solutions focused on cloud and microservices based architecture. Prior to ENSO, Kayur held a number of impactful roles including Senior Technology Director at NEX (now part of CME Group), Senior Solutions Architect of the initial technology platform at Transcend, and Senior Vice President at Citi, where he implemented and managed trade capture and STP systems.
“Transcend is experiencing explosive growth for our analytics, optimization and regulatory solutions,” said Bimal Kadikar, CEO and Founder of Transcend. “I have known Kayur for years and his expertise in developing advanced, scalable systems on the cloud and for the buy-side will accelerate our strong technology capabilities and momentum.”
“I look forward to joining Transcend and leveraging my extensive experience in delivering state-of-the-art technology for cross-asset collateral, funding and liquidity management,” said Parekh. “I am excited to work with the talented Transcend team to help solve our clients’ complex challenges.”
As Transcend’s Business Grows, So Has Our India Team and Office
Our CEO Bimal Kadikar joined our team in India to open a larger office in Hyderabad. We have expanded our team’s talent and capabilities significantly across all functions – analysis, development, QA & support. This bigger, brighter space creates a very collaborative environment and will support our ambitious growth plans.
