Our goal is to streamline and enhance the efficiency of the commodity financial markets
Having spent over two decades in the commodity market, EklipX founders not only have a deep passion for the field but also an intimate understanding of its challenges. These challenges include significant issues like a pronounced lack of transparency, a lack of innovation, a difficulty to access liquidity for certain markets, complexities in comprehending financial and OTC products, a lack of optimisation, frequent default in this market, among others. To address these issues, they established EklipX, aiming to tackle these problems incrementally
The problems faced in the market
Since 2008, there has been a significant shift in the financial and Over-The-Counter (OTC) markets, marked by the withdrawal of many traditional banks and the emergence of new players, such as independent price providers. This has led to a blurring of roles, with some organizations now performing both buying and selling functions, confusing the traditional distinctions between the two.
Navigating the OTC market has always been complex, but the last decade has seen an escalation in difficulties for clients seeking competitive prices and liquidity, especially in managing their cash flow due to limited financing options. This change has particularly affected smaller clients (Tier 2/Tier 3), diminishing their efficiency and global competitiveness.
In recent years, there have been numerous defaults or frauds in the commodity markets, such as Euromar Commodities GmbH in the cocoa market, Phoenix Commodities Pvt Ltd in agricultural markets, and Hin Leong in oil. These defaults and frauds have not only had significant financial repercussions for the lenders of these companies but also led to a fundamental and systemic shift. Increasingly, banks are pulling out of the commodity market, deeming it too risky, with notable examples like BNP Paribas and ABN Amro.
During the last two years amidst the Ukraine-Russian conflict, the extreme market volatility has made entities with commodity market exposure hesitant to hedge. This reluctance is primarily due to the financial burdens associated with initial margin requirements.
The EklipX way - our product & model
Ultimately our objective is to help the commodity market being more transparent, more trustworthy, more efficient, with lower costs of transactions & lower cost of financing for market participants. In essence, our goal is to streamline and enhance the efficiency of the commodity markets.
EklipX OTC represents the first part of our operations, with a focus on enhancing liquidity, ensuring equitable pricing for all parties, including smaller entities, and promoting transparency. EklipX OTC gather all sources of OTC commodity prices on one software, to provide a single point of entry for the clients and price providers…The prices providers are banks and other financial institutions (ex: Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi Group, etc..).The clients are corporate and institutional (ex: Starbucks, Nestle, and much smaller companies or funds…)
Alongside our OTC software, we offer clients tools to oversee their portfolio risk, allowing them to efficiently manage their financial & OTC positions and margins with banks and price providers.
EklipX Research offers its clients comprehensive market intelligence, recognizing the close connection between market fundamentals, analysis, and trading strategies, to help them trade market fluctuations effectively.
Key metrics
Management Team
Damien drives the strategic vision and growth. Before EklipX, Damien worked as a commodity derivatives trader in several financial institutions in London, such as Societe Generale, Armajaro OTC, Amius Ltd, and Cadogan Risk Management. He brings a strong expertise of the financial commodity and risk management industry, having worked in this field for more than 12 years.
A hands-on technologist with a passion for cloud centric solutions and maintainable development practices. Founded startups providing niche development services to Fortune 500s and implemented solutions across multiple sectors largely in Finance & Insurance having worked at Tradeweb, Amius & WTW before cofounding Eklipx.