Synaps Loans announced on Thursday that it has created and tested a working blockchain solution for servicing syndicated loans.
Synaps is a joint venture between Ipreo, a fintech and analytics provider, and Symbiont, which provides distributed ledger technology for institutions.
"Synaps now has the majority of the functionality needed to implement blockchain technology at scale in the syndicated loan market, which enables us to move into the final stages of development," according to Emmanuel Aidoo, head of the distributed ledger and blockchain effort at Credit Suisse, which helped arrange the project. Blockchain consortium R3's Lab and Research Center managed testing for the solution.
Aidoo said in a statement, "Over the coming months we will work with Symbiont and Ipreo to implement the remaining functions to allow for distributed ledger technology to support a syndicated loan facility from origination to payoff, and work toward market adoption. The technical and market expertise that the project participants brought to the table means this solution will be tailor-made for use in live transactions."
"With this project we have proven that smart contracts can revolutionize the entire lifecycle of a loan, from creation to settlement in secondary trading," Mark Smith, co-founder and CEO of Symbiont, said in the statement. "Fifteen different parties played roles in the final demo, executing bespoke and complex tasks on-platform. We look forward to working with these parties to deploy the technology in production."
On Tuesday, IBM, Natixis and Trafigura, a commodities trading group, introduced a distributed ledger solution to let commodities traders conduce U.S. crude oil transactions.
Trading partners on the ledger would be able to share trade documents, shipment updates, and delivery and payment status.
