Fnality, a UK-based company using blockchain technology to enable instant wholesale payments between financial institutions, has raised £99.7 million ($136 million) in a Series C funding round, with plans to now expand its infrastructure offering to more global currencies following the launch of Sterling operations in late 2023.
This latest fundraise was co-led by WisdomTree, Bank of America, Citi, KBC Group, Temasek and Tradeweb, with support from Banco Santander, Barclays, DTCC, Euroclear, ING, Nasdaq Ventures, State Street, UBS, and BNP Paribas and Goldman Sachs, which together led a £77.7 million Series B round for Fnality in November 2023.
The company used this former capital injection to launch its Sterling Fnality Payment System in the UK the following December. The system processes wholesale payments between financial institutions using distributed ledger technology (DLT), with transactions settled through central bank funds.
Proceeds from the Series C have been earmarked to fund “ongoing strategic initiatives” at Fnality, according to a company statement. These include “extending the network’s footprint to other major currencies, delivering solutions that optimise liquidity management, and facilitating the emerging payment ecosystem by providing settlement interoperability for innovations such as stablecoins and tokenised deposits”.
The company’s website confirms plans to deliver a US dollar counterpart to the Sterling Fnality Payment System, stating that “ongoing discussions with US regulators are underway to realise our vision of a novel multi-currency ecosystem”, adding that the company is “making steady progress” on this initiative.
The noted financial backing of European institutions like ING, Banco Santander, KBC, and Euroclear, which provides post-trade security settlement, fund management, collateral management and data services, could also accelerate current developments of a Euro-based system.
Source: https://www.fintechfutures.com/
