"Industry consortium Octaura aims to automate syndicated loans this year, collateralized loan obligations next year and then expand further into asset-backed securities and other securitized markets.
Brian Bejile, chief executive of Octaura, told Markets Media the consortium was set up to attack problems that exist across markets with persistent inefficiencies in workflows and too much time spent on processes which have remained manual.
For example, the CLO market is still traded by voice on phones despite advances in technology. Bejile said: 'It is like booking a flight in the 1990s when you had to walk into an agent and they may have a ticket for you, but you had no choices.'"