Today, I woke up to a rush of news reports covering blockchain-focused company Fnality’s latest successful funding round. 

The round was led by Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas, joined by a number of other banks, raising a total of £77.7 million ($95.2 million) – no mean feat in today’s climate. 

CEO Rhomaios Ram said that he felt that “small pockets” of optimism were finally emerging in the funding space, despite it being difficult to close the round. 

So what exactly are they so optimistic about? 

Fnality has been building a kind of private CBDC made for wholesale transactions. All the tokenized funds are backed by central bank currencies, and settlement happens in real time. 

Last year, in June 2022, at one of our London meet-ups, Ram spoke about the potential this could have for interbank transfers. He described the solution as “the ultimate stablecoin,” harnessing all the benefits of stablecoins with the added security of being backed by central bank money. 

Back then, the plan was to launch in October 2022, starting in England with a sterling-backed payment system – £FnPS (these acronyms are getting really out of hand). But ongoing development hung on the Bank of England. “Her Majesty’s Treasury needs to designate us as a systemically important payment system,” he said at the time. 

That designation came in August, and the UK released its regulatory plan for stablecoin supervision just last week. Some of the requisites for BoE oversight were very similar to Fnality’s business model, making them somewhat of an outlier in the stablecoin space.

Fnality is poised for execution. Now all they need is the regulatory nod.

FEATURED

Goldman, BNP Lead $95 Million Investment in Blockchain Firm Fnality

Fnality International Ltd., which is developing a blockchain-based wholesale payment system, raised £77.7 million ($95.2 million) in a funding round led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and BNP Paribas SA.

FROM FINTECH NEXUS

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