Supporting Risk Management and Renewable Energy Adoption for Commodities Trading Firms

We deliver everything required for energy and commodities trading firms to adapt to changing markets, access more powerful analytics, and rapidly adopt new instruments.

Empowering Energy and Commodities Trading Firms to Increase Transparency and Efficiency

Energy and commodities trading firms face unique challenges – from working with complex physical assets and managing power purchase agreements to adopting new renewable energy sources – but legacy technology and fragmented workflows are holding them back.

We help you gain a comprehensive, real-time view of the markets and your holdings, so your traders, risk professionals, and quant developers can focus on innovation and gain an edge in these volatile markets.

Challenges

Lack of support for exotic instruments, incomplete risk management processes, complex physical assets, disconnected legacy systems, and fragmented manual workflows

Solution

Configurable financial instrument definitions, cross-asset risk and reporting applications, and a broad range of integration points, all built on cloud-native technology

Result

Accelerated deployment for new instruments, timely analytics, and data consistency across the entire portfolio

Our Energy & Commodities Success Stories

Over the years, our solutions for application development, cloud migration, and risk management have helped energy and commodities trading firms overcome business and technology challenges and accelerate time to value. Here are some of the highlights.

Challenge

Replacing in-house legacy tools with a more flexible cloud-based system to easily adapt to changing markets and requirements

Solution

Connecting Beacon to existing internal data feeds and extending functionality for full front-to-back workflow

Pre-trade workflows with seamless transitions to live trading
Exchange reconciliation and positions limits
Trade confirmations and regulatory reporting
Product extensions to price and trade Renewable Energy Certificates

Result

Delivery of a full range of energy risk management solutions to other producers, consumers, and market participants

Challenge

Running XVA simulations at scale – 200,000 interest rate swaps with the monthly steps for 30 years

Solution

Enhanced ability to evaluate projected performance of large trade portfolios over time, with simulated fixings and lifecycle events

1,000 simulated paths, 50 billion calculations, 400 GB of data
Adapted from MongoDB to S3 to handle large memory requirements
Cached results in memory for faster compute
Cloud-agnostic with ability to spin up additional processors as needed

Result

5 minutes to spin up 10,000 processors and 45 minutes to complete all calculations, at a total cost of $72

Challenge

Expanding range of products that can be traded and incorporating new and exotic financial instruments

Solution

A cloud-based technology platform, integrated development environment, and powerful array of front-office applications

Automation of current workload to free up quant resources
Rapid pricing and trading of new products through Beacon Quote
XVA tools for deeper and ad-hoc risk analysis
Transparent source code for proprietary extensions

Result

Faster expansion into new products and markets, enabling greater focus on areas of competitive advantage

Challenge

Expediting development and deployment of innovative applications for customers to power new energy solutions

Solution

Cloud-based developer platform and powerful dependency graph technology

Accelerated development and deployment of web-based applications
Greater experimentation and collaboration with customers
Large-scale data and analytics processing
Transparent source code for proprietary extensions

Result

Ability for customers to move to lower-carbon energy solutions faster and with greater control and reliability

Challenge

Integrating proprietary models to manage the increasing complexity of energy trading

Solution

Cloud-based commodity trading and risk management platform with an integrated developer environment

Ability to embed proprietary quantitative models into your trading solution
Incorporation of non-standard energy contracts
Accelerated development and deployment of new applications
Transparent source code to take ownership of your full stack

Result

Improved portfolio visibility, governance and workflow controls, and risk and exposure management

Challenge

Incorporating more renewable energy and decentralized generation into portfolios to increase flexibility and sustainability

Solution

Building on top of core solution to incorporate broader variety of renewable energy instruments and contracts

Ability to set up and model complex trades and new instruments
Elastic compute for large-scale risk calculations
Improved risk models for live, near-real-time VaR calculations
Transparent source code for proprietary extensions

Result

Implementation of full lifecycle valuation of deals in less than 12 months, enabling expansion into new markets and service

Challenge

Integrating and customizing trading analytics with existing commodities trading and risk management data

Solution

Building on top of core solution to add proprietary functionality and enhance enterprise intellectual property

Sophisticated risk analytics (VaR and XVA) available out of the box
Faster deployment with seamless cloud infrastructure integration
Customized analytics and faster response to commercial requests
Ability to facilitate extensions with transparent source code

Result

Ability to run VaR on financial trading portfolio just one week after the start of the pilot project, supporting expansion to new markets

Our Technology. Your Vision

Our platform is as powerful as it is versatile, helping energy and commodities trading firms take full advantage of powerful cloud infrastructure tools, advanced application development workflows, and a comprehensive set of trading and risk management applications.

Cloud Infrastructure

Scalable and controlled cloud environments delivering performance, security, and cost savings

Developer Experience

Collaborative tools and workflows to increase software development efficiency and accelerate time to market

Applications

Prebuilt and extensible tools for analysis, trading, and risk management

Portfolio Management

Optimize your trades and holdings with comprehensive and customizable analytics across the enterprise

Risk Management

Aggregate, model, and manage risk across all asset classes from a single platform, using standard or proprietary pricing models and analytics

Sales & Trading

Integrate diverse datasets and analytics to evaluate performance across books, portfolios, and asset classes

Application Development

Build, test, configure, and deploy cloud-native applications at scale through our developer platform

Cloud Migration

Leverage cloud computing resources for faster results and better insights from your secure, automated, and cost-effective cloud domain

Hear from Our Clients

Let some of the markets’ most innovative energy and commodities trading firms tell you how Beacon improved their risk management, supported the adoption of new and exotic instruments, and accelerated development workflows.

Just one week after the start of our pilot project, we were able to run VaR on our financial trading portfolio in Beacon.

Peter BradleyCEO, Javelin Global Commodities

Axpo US is leveraging Beacon to drive our customer business forward by providing a cost-effective solution to price both simple and highly complex deals and manage our risk in an efficient, sustainable manner.

Jeremy WodakowHead, Axpo US

KWA is partnering with the Beacon Platform because we see the value and benefits that clients receive by deploying Beacon’s market leading front office and risk capabilities. The partnership also gives clients the flexibility to integrate Beacon enabled solutions with their ETRMs

Fred ReimerDirector, KWA Analytics Americas

There was nothing else in the market that could model commodity indices the way we wanted while enabling us to launch the business so quickly.

Daniel CepedaFounding Partner and Portfolio Manager, Quantix

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