Origin Markets is disrupting the global bond market, integrating eSignature into its workflow

Origin Markets is a London based fintech company, building software for investment banks to help them digitise the workflow for issuing new bonds. Business Insider described bond origination as the last digital frontier in banking—Origin offers a fully digital, front-to-back issuance platform for the global debt capital markets.

As a previous investment banker, co-founder and CEO Raja Palaniappan was acutely aware of the manual and paper-heavy processes involved with issuing and trading bonds and —this is the challenge that Origin is seeking to address—through the digitisation of laborious issuance processes, customers can save time, money and become more efficient.

By integrating Docusign eSignature into its workflow, Origin Markets is enabling users to complete agreements quickly and without paper. 

Using eSignature to complete the digitisation of bond issuance 

Bond origination is a process that happens regularly in the capital markets by all sorts of businesses; companies,  governments, supernationals, NGOs. This process can be very manual and very paper heavy from start to finish. Origin’s software digitises all of that, helping customers to save time, save money and be more efficient.

One part of the bond issuance process is drafting legal documents and then signing them—Origin’s software helps the banks and the borrowers automatically generate those documents. Without it, lawyers would have to build agreements for each case—spending upwards of a couple of days each time creating a new issuance. With Origin, they are able to choose from templates within the platform, generating agreements with the click of a button.  

The organisation is receiving extremely positive feedback, with customers commencing that the platform is enabling them to issue bonds ten times faster—rather than taking a couple of days, documents are ready to go within an hour.  

After digitally drafting these legal agreements—it didn’t make sense to introduce the need for  printing and signing using pen and paper. Generally, the signatory is not the same person who has drafted the documents. Once the agreement has been drafted by a  lawyer, a treasurer needs to sign. This can lead to panic—as signatories may be unavailable. 

With electronic signatures, the signatory receives a prompt to sign either on their computer mobile device, completing the agreement instantly, from almost anywhere. With COVID-19 this is even more urgently needed for customers.

Listening to customers in order to choose an e-signature solution 

Once Origin identified the need to offer clients a way to execute contracts electronically and began exploring the concept of adding an electronic signature module as part of his solution they realised that some of their customer base was already using electronic signatures and recommended Docusign eSignature. For Origin’s customers, stability, security and trust are crucial—that’s why it made sense to choose a reputable brand, who is recognised as the best signing solution worldwide. 

Additionally, Docusign’s APIs impressed the team —representing the ease at which eSignature could be seamlessly integrated into its platform and workflows. 

Witnessing the uptake of innovative technology 

As it stands, Origin offers users the choice to sign with an electronic signature or with a traditional, wet-ink signature. This is because the organisation is often dealing with large investment banks and large financial institutions, some of whom are resistant to digital solutions as a means of doing business. 

However, the recent pandemic has forced millions of people around the world to reassess their digital transformation strategy. As entire workforces now work remotely, and a plethora of business processes need to be completed digitally, digitisation has become more important than ever. Raja, and Origin are eager to be part of this transformation, educating traditionally conservativce businesses on the benefits of e-signatures, and the impact that they can have.

Where organisations were once slow to trust technology there has been a huge acceleration in conversations around digital transformation,  plans to implement digital solutions, and in changing policies to accept digital alternatives, such as electronic signatures. Raja notes that this is reflected in the new wave of customers who are using eSignature on Origin’s platform and the acceleration in policy changes.

“We’ve seen a huge new wave of customers who are using Docusign eSignature on our platform. There has also been an acceleration in policy changes— timelines have altered from 5 years to a matter or months”

The future is digital for investment banking 

Origin could change the lives of junior bankers, thus disrupting the $130 trillion global bond market by digitising the laborious issuance process. 

Moving forward, Origin wants to expand eSignature use across its spectrum of customers. Through educating their customers on the benefits of e-signatures and the impact that they can have, they are encouraging these organisations to look at eSignature and other digital solutions. 

“The goal moving forward is to drive adoption of the Origins documentation product and increase customer adoption of eSignature as part of that.”