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Identify and settle circles pre-nomination, a revolution to string markets.
Product overview
CircleOut helps trading firms to net their positions before the start of operations, automatically identifying circles and washouts based on the contract positions provided by the market.
Designed to tackle the complexities of string markets, the platform brings efficiencies to trading companies that are involved in long strings. By using CircleOut, companies can identify and settle circles pre-execution – a revolution to string markets.
30 M
Metric tons of contract volume uploaded
9 M
Metric tons of volume netted
6000+
Circles & washouts identified
Network & Markets
There are now over 30 companies active on the CircleOut platform across South American and European string markets.
These are made up of both global agri trading firms and local trading companies, including FOB Paranagua (Brazil), FOB Timbues (Argentina), FOB 6 Ports (across Europe), FOB Dutch Mills (Netherlands) and German Lower Rhein (Germany).
It doesn’t stop there! Watch this space – and our News page – for expansion announcements.
FOB 6 Ports (Sunflower Oil)
FOB Dutch Mills (Rapeseed Oil)
FOB Lower Rhein (Rapeseed Meal)
FOB Paranagua (Soybeans, Soybean Oil & Soybean Meal)
FOB Timbues (Soybean Oil)
Industry challenges
For too long the industry has dealt with post-trade execution processes that fail to meet the demands of the modern agri trade landscape. Participants are hindered with inefficient, manual processes for communicating and performing trade execution. Extensive research and collaboration with industry participants has brought to light the following pain points:
Manual process of identifying & forming circles
The issue: Teams spend vast amounts of time on phone calls and sending emails just in the hope of finding circles. Once found, they need to get all parties to come to an agreement and then, finally, reach the final settlement. This is naturally a time-consuming and laborious process. The impact: The market is fully reliant on the initiators who spend the time to find the circles. The process therefore takes longer and, crucially, circles can be missed.
Missing circles before execution
The issue: The danger of missing circles before execution can result in up to 5-10x more time spent on contract execution – inefficiencies that can also lead to issues such as detention payments, disputes and counterparty credit exposure. The impact: More time spent on contract execution can directly affect working capital, as full contract values are exchanged instead of only the price differences. Therefore, it creates unmitigated risk.
Making unintentional mistakes
The issue: Companies need to keep positions up to date in Excel spreadsheets, manually entering data from their front end system into Excel. They also need to continually modify this information with any updates that come through via email. The impact: Despite the market making the best of an inefficient process, mistakes often arise due to contract unavailability and having to manually re-key data. A reliance on spreadsheets also makes it more challenging to hand over cases to other employees when someone is off sick or on annual leave.
Key Features
CircleOut reduces the complexities of liquid physical commodity markets. It does this by identifying more circles that involve multiple buyers and sellers in a string.
Value survey 2024 results
Value surveys have been conducted across European and South American markets.
Before CircleOut companies active in Brazil FOB Paranagua often missed circles due to the complexities of the market. This would lead to more time spent in execution and up to 2 days of extra working capital required. With CircleOut companies report to be 43% more efficient in identifying and settling circles.
Companies active European FOB 6 Ports market for sunflower oil report to get even more efficiency gains of up to 82%. With CircleOut companies now find more circles and are even able to find them further ahead in time.