Appital deploys desktop application on OpenFin

Submitted 30/07/2020 - 9:22am

Appital, the Equity Capital Marketplace, has built and deployed its desktop application on the OpenFin operating system (OS). 

Appital aims to brings transparency and automation to Equity Capital Markets (ECM). The Appital platform allows buy side firms to gain greater exposure to deal flow opportunities they have not been able to access before, helping portfolio managers and heads of trading build a comprehensive picture of liquidity, including highly illiquid, small and mid-cap stocks. 

The Appital platform enables deal participants to uncover and unlock liquidity, while providing deal originators with the opportunity to execute large volumes, often in excess of 5 days of Average Daily Volume (ADV), with minimal market impact or risk of price erosion. Appital’s unconflicted allocation methodology stands in  stark contrast to today’s opaque, legacy practices that are mainly driven by phone interactions in the ECM space, lacking fully automated audit trails.

By making the Appital platform available on OpenFin, deal originators benefit from a real-time view of the book building activity and platform interactions directly on their desktop. At the same time, deal participants will receive notifications from their Appital desktop application, should a deal be of relevance to them.

Building on OpenFin ensures application interoperability with third party applications already built on OpenFin, making workflows for asset managers and hedge funds participating in book building processes more automated and efficient.

OpenFin is used to deploy over 1,200 applications across more than 225,000 desktops at 1,500 institutions, in more than 60 countries. Interoperability comes as standard for all applications built on OpenFin OS, allowing them to share information, context and intent with third party apps in a permissioned manner.

Pete Correia, CTO and co-founder of Appital, says: “Building our desktop application on OpenFin is a natural extension of our growth strategy. OpenFin makes the innovation and automation we bring to equity capital markets easy to deploy to the asset management community, who are looking for more efficient and transparent ways to uncover liquidity that is hard to find. The interoperability and integration with existing workflows will further help open up access to equity capital markets and give buy-side firms more control over their book building processes”.

Appital’s book-building and allocation methodology is transparent, unbiased and unconflicted, delivering a fair outcome for all market participants and unlocking liquidity that has historically been difficult to access.

Adam Toms, CEO, OpenFin Europe, says: “Appital brings innovation and automation to an area of equity capital markets that has, so far, remained largely untouched by electronification and we are excited to welcome them to the OpenFin community. They give buy-side firms the tools to control the book building process, enabling PMs and heads of trading to find liquidity via the Appital platform and execute trades in excess of five days ADV. We look forward to seeing the growth of Appital in this important market segment.”

Mark Badyra, CEO and co-founder of Appital, says: “Outdated legacy practices and a lack of innovation in equity capital markets have restricted the ability for buy side firms to access small and mid-cap or highly illiquid instruments for too long. We believe technology has a key role to play in transforming ECM, much as OpenFin has changed the landscape for capital markets desktops.”

A Google Cloud-hosted platform, Appital’s end-to-end processes are secure, fully automated and deliver the visibility and transparency necessary for internal compliance, external audit and regulatory reporting. 

Tags Trading & Execution Technology & software solutions