By Nick Devor
Prediction markets have disrupted the financial world over the last 18 months, promising investors new ways to trade on world events, from sports to elections. But the platforms may still need help from Wall Street institutions, especially when it comes to the financial plumbing the facilitates trades across the world.
Prediction-market firm Kalshi is set to partner with Fidelity National Information Service to launch FIS CD Prediction Clearing, the companies told Barron's ahead of a planned announcement on Tuesday. FIS sells software, trading systems, and risk management tools to financial institutions.
"We are at an inflection point for prediction markets," Andy Ross, head of institutional at Kalshi, said in a statement the company provided to Barron's. The company saw $10.4 billion in trading volume last month.
"Having the right post-trade foundation in place is critical to unlocking the next wave of participation," Ross said.
Kalshi says the partnership will help institutional traders trade more comfortably on the firm's prediction markets.
Kalshi is privately held and recently raised about $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation, according to a Wall Street Journal report. FIS has a market value of $25.8 billion; its stock is down 65% over the last five years.
Clearinghouses, which rely on FIS' tools, became an established part of the derivatives market following the 2008 financial crisis. They track trades and provide a defined set of rules, such as what kind of collateral contract holders need to put up and how frequently portfolios needed to be marked to market.
The clearinghouses hold the collateral on each side of a contract, transferring risk from trading parties to the clearinghouse itself.
The new tool from FIS is "absolutely one of the key pieces of infrastructure that we need at Kalshi to continue to develop and grow the institutional part of the market," Ross told Barron's in an interview.
The Kalshi partnership would allow FIS clients to access prediction markets without leaving the FIS ecosystem.
"Many of those firms are not looking for individual, bespoke solutions to process different asset classes," said Tito Shirley, head of middle office solutions at FIS. "By extending our existing solution suite, we really reduce that barrier to entry."
FIS declined to name specific clients that could benefit from the arrangement.
The prediction clearing tool is available for "any firm that's looking to offer clearing services on prediction markets," Shirley said.
For Kalshi, the partnership is about breaking down barriers to entry for institutional players, giving them real-time clearing and high-volume processing.
"An individual person can use our app because they're only doing the one niche thing -- trading derivatives on Kalshi -- as opposed to the institutional people who might be doing a thousand different things." Kalshi's Ross said in the interview.
The FIS partnership is the latest effort by Kalshi to expand prediction markets beyond retail traders. In February, the firm announced a partnership with Tradeweb, the bond-trading hub -- which also took a minority stake in Kalshi -- to bring Kalshi prediction-market data to institutional traders who rely on its software.
Write to Nick Devor at nicholas.devor@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 24, 2026 08:00 ET (12:00 GMT)
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