- Founders: Guido Stroemer (CEO / Chairman), Olly Benkert (Advisor)
- Founded: 2017
- Best suited for: Institutional clients in global securities financing markets
- Headquartered in: Luxembourg, France.
HQLAx: the Essential Details
HQLAx was founded in 2017 by two world-renowned financial experts called Guido Stroemer and Olly Benkert. Stroemer drew upon 25 years of experience at the cutting edge of the financial industry and Benkert offered his working knowledge of the world of finance following a successful tenure at Goldman Sachs. Together, they took HQLAx on an immensely positive journey.
The mission of HQLAx is to enhance and simplify the ownership transfers of assets for a wide range of financial institutions. Amongst their extensive portfolio of clients are numerous companies that play a heavily active role in the securities lending and collateral management industries.
To achieve its positive mission, the innovative team behind HQLAx teamed up with Deutsche Börse, a well-established firm in Germany that provides marketplace organizing for the trading of shares, and carefully crafted a multi-layer operating model that flawlessly allows their clients to exchange ownership of assets and securities across disparate collateral pools at precise moments in time.
One of the most popular aspects of the HQLAx ecosystem is its Delivery vs Delivery (DvD) system. DvD provides access to characteristically straightforward ownership transfers where clients can take full advantage of capital cost savings by reducing exposure to a range of factors ranging from credit risk and intraday liquidity requirements to operational risk.
To understand the mission of HQLAx in practice, it’s worth looking at some of its very positive use cases. Such as:
- Successfully mobilizing a wide range of difficult-to-move assets and providing funding solutions.
- Providing scalability for a plethora of future digital assets.
- Enhancing regulatory transparency over collateral chains, and providing risk-reducing solutions for various business scenarios.
What HQLAx is Doing
HQLAx is rapidly overhauling the negative aspects of the financial industry, one step at a time. For example, during traditional settlement windows across global finance, the settlement of transactions takes place at unspecified times. With the technology offered by HQLAx, clients are granted the benefit of being provided with a date and specific time for each and every transaction from the first and final stage of it.
In addition, the current common practices of conventional settlements are notoriously costly procedures. The first, Free of Payment (FoP) deliveries, costs significant amounts of intraday credit to execute. The second, Delivery versus Payment (DvP) settlements, costs significant amounts of intraday liquidity due to the cash payment legs of (DvP) settlements.
To better the entire process of each, HQLAx has overhauled and created a multi-layer operating model called DvD. With HQLAx’s version, they have successfully reduced the amount of intraday credit and intraday liquidity that is consumed. The end result? Significant amounts of capital savings are passed on to their clients.
Since its foundation in 2017, Guido Stroemer and Olly Benkert have developed a strong team comprised of equally experienced financial experts. From former managers who cut their teeth at the likes of Clearstream Banking AG and Citibank to financial experts with exemplary career history at financial powerhouses like Goldman Sachs, HQLAx has a formidable team taking it into the future indeed.
Conclusion
Due to the innovative range of advantages that HQLAx brings its clients, it has naturally taken Europe by storm, including our top Fintech50 2019 list. But this financial powerhouse isn’t resting on its laurels by any means. It has firmly set its sights on the U.S. financial market and seeks to expand monumentally in the coming years. So the future is looking very bright for this promising company that seeks to enhance and simplify the ownership transfers of assets for a wide range of financial institutions.
