Sir Peter Estlin is an independent director of Rothschild & Co as well as Chair of FutureDotNow, a coalition of businesses and organisations working together to boost digital skills across the UK. He is a non-executive member on HM Treasury’s Audit Committee. He was the Lord Mayor of London in 2018/19 having had a thirty-five-year career with Barclays, Citigroup, Salomon Brothers and Coopers & Lybrand in London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.

DDCM is developing software to enable, for the first time, truly end-to-end digital support for the entire life cycle of a bond through the deployment of its agoraSoftware. This technology will improve communication and processes from a bond’s issuance to repayment at its term. The agora software will be used by issuers, arrangers and multiple service providers to the international bond markets, from the pre-mandate stage, during execution, pricing and primary settlement and throughout the secondary life of the security until its final redemption.

Charlie Berman, co-founder and CEO of DDCM said: “ I have had the pleasure of working with Sir Peter at various stages of his highly successful career and am thrilled to now welcome him as an advisor to our company. A trained accountant, he not only possesses a keen eye for numbers, but also an intimate knowledge on the inner workings of major banks, the regulatory environment in which they operate and the challenges of information gathering and data management. His boundless energy, passion for improving digital education across society, and his commitment to seeing the power of digitisation embraced is widely appreciated in many quarters. His counsel and expertise will be invaluable as we grow our company and apply digitisation to the bond markets for the benefit of all its participants.”

Sir Peter Estlin said: “I have been very impressed by DDCM’s progress over the past two years; the business has just closed its second successful fund raising and its beta testing with several bond market participants has already generated excellent initial results. The agoraSoftware will connect market participants in a completely new way and in collaboration with existing stakeholders lead to improved efficiency, reduced errors, increase speed, greater transparency and better products for all. I look forward to working with this talented team of experience and youth who have quickly established themselves as a significant new player on the capital markets fintech scene in Europe and globally.”