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Liquity Protocol attracts $1B TVL in just 10 days

The team behind Liquity Protocol — a DeFi project launched on April 5 — has attracted $1 billion worth of locked up value according to data from Dune Analytics.

The Pantera Capital-backed Liquity is a Swiss-based decentralized and governance-free lending protocol that offers interest-free loans against Ethereum locked as collateral, with users required to maintain a minimum collateral ratio of 110%.

Loans are paid out in the protocol’s algorithmic stable coin LUSD, which is pegged to the value of USD at a one-to-one ratio. The protocol automatically generates LUSD to meet user demand, and so far has minted a supply of 480 million stable coins, with more coins being minted than burned each day.

The loans are secured by the protocol’s Stability Pool that acts as a source of liquidity to repay liquidated debt, and also by fellow borrowers collectively acting as guarantors of last resort. Users can earn money through the protocol by staking liquidity and earn revenue from issuance fees in LUSD and redemption fees in ETH.

Data from the mammoth 10-day run published via DuneAnalytics revealed that borrowing demand has rewarded stakers so far, with an average of roughly $240,000 of fees generated per day on the protocol between April 12 and April 14. The total staked amount edged past $720,000 on April 15, and the majority of users are keeping within a collateral range between 150-250%.

On March 29 Cointelegraph reported that the Liquity Protocol had closed its Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital with a $6 million investment, which included additional contributions from companies such as quantitative investment firm Alameda Research.

The decentralized finance protocol sector continues to push past its all-time highs, with data aggregator DeFi Llama showing that there is now $123.33 billion worth of total locked-up value in DeFi protocols as of today. In its short lifespan, the Liquity Protocol has pushed itself up to rank 26 in the top 100 DeFi protocols with $1.06 billion in TVL.

Liquity Protocol attracts $1B TVL in just 10 days

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Leading UK Fintech Firms Now Working with PwC to Streamline Digital Financial Services with AI, Data Analytics

Ten of the United Kingdom’s leading Fintech companies are now working with Big Four auditing firm PwC in order to showcase how the future of banking will focus on both collaboration and innovation, along with greater personalization.

After 3 years of ongoing development, the 10 Fintechs have managed to contribute to the company’s “Tysl” ecosystem which includes various solutions related to software, automation, AI, data management and analytics.

These solutions aim to make it easier or more convenient for clients to open new bank accounts, obtain specialized financing services, move house and digitally sign official documents.

By leveraging an API-powered approach, which lets software apps communicate with each other, Tysl has enabled these firms to work cooperatively and innovate together with PwC to create a banking tech proposition that helps organizations with significantly enhancing performance across several different measures.

This includes dealing with complex customer or user experience journeys like advanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Know Your Customer (KYC), Credit Decisioning, and in life account and loan servicing across several key areas such as mortgages, savings and corporate lending.

By leveraging Tysl, PwC can effectively develop all-digital solutions through an innovative, affordable, and user-centric online lending platform. This can help the company’s customers with enhancing their customer-facing business operations and improve products and services in order to meet the speed and multi-channel expectations required by companies today.

James Morgan, Lead Partner on Tysl stated:

“Banking is changing, people expect more and require personalised digital interactions. Based on the needs and expectations of tomorrow’s customers, we have developed our Tysl platform. This is helping our clients reach new customers, upsell and grow topline revenue by delivering enhanced capabilities whilst significantly reducing the costs of servicing the client from onboarding to in life servicing.”

The companies or businesses that are now integrated with the Tysl platform include:

Mambu – is a software-as-a-service or SaaS financial services platform supporting innovation in banking, lending, and – a Cloud-native alternative to more traditional core banking systems.

Yoti – is a global identity platform that makes it more seamless and safer for banking clients to prove who they are via ID verification and biometrics

Kompli Global – created a remote due diligence solution that harnesses artificial intelligence and “human expertise” to provide intelligence on organizations and their workers.

DueDil – is an insights provider assisting financial services organizations and insurers with a better understanding of their client base to handle digital or online onboarding, manage compliance, risk, and in-life monitoring.

Just Move In – provides a home setup experience for people moving home that arranges essential services including council tax, insurance, and broadband.

SignNow – is a legally binding eSignature application, allows users to create and complete legally binding electronic signatures on any device.

Codat – connects the tools and services that small businesses need for their operations to their financial service providers and takes care of the “heavy lifting” of those integrations.

Flexys – is a specialist tech firm focused on enhancing the value and performance of debt management and collection systems with a low-code, Cloud-native platform.

Saltedge – develops PSD2-powered solutions that are used by Fintech firms, banking institutions, and other financial institutions across the globe. The company provides connectivity to over 2500 banks across Europe for data aggregation and payment initiation capabilities – through a single API.

Credit Kudos -an open banking credit reference agency that uses real-time financial behavior to “measure creditworthiness” and “affordability” to assist lenders when unwriting consumer and commercial loans.

Lendingmetrics – Auto Decision Platform (ADP) is a decision engine environment that may be applied across “unlimited” brands, products or lending journeys under a single license and offers a comprehensive (no-code) editor, helping non-technical staff to make real-time changes to credit risk logic

Gazeal – enables the seller of a property to provide key details required to meet the estate agent’s Consumer Protection Regulations requirements, and, as a Licensed Provider of the Law Society, all of the requirements of the Conveyancing Quality Scheme. By using Gazeal’s reservation service, it will “almost” completely eliminate abortive transactions.

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Digital Asset Custody Provider Hex Trust Finalizes $6M Round led by QBN Capital

Hong Kong-headquartered crypto-asset custody service provider Hex Trust reveals that it has secured $6 million in capital via a Series A round that was led by QBN Capital.

As part of its latest investment round, Hex Trust also received contributions from Cell Rising, Radiant Tech Ventures, Kenetic Capital, HashKey, MD Labs, Fenbushi Capital, Borderless Capital, Genesis Block Ventures and Henri Arslanian.

Hex Trust’s management noted that the funds raised would allow it to further scale its business operations while being able to recruit new talent to work at its Hong Kong and Singapore offices.

Hex Trust further noted that during 2021, they’ll make plans to  expand operations into the European market, where the company has teamed up with SIA, an established provider of banking tech infrastructure.

Hex Trust said the capital secured will also be directed towards making enhancements to its proprietary, bank-grade custody solution, called Hex Safe™. The technology-driven service provides a wide range of custody and treasury management solutions for digital assets, security tokens, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as well.

Alessio Quaglini, CEO and Co-founder at Hex Trust, stated:

“We are past the inflection point, as blockchain has established itself as the next financial markets infrastructure. Financial institutions are quickly making their moves, and the next 12 months will be critical to define the structure of the overall market. Hex Trust is now perfectly positioned to accelerate its growth and play a leading role in this space, enabling digital assets adoption for a broad range of regulated financial institutions. We are thrilled to be accompanied in this journey by such established investors.”

As noted by its management team, Hex Trust claims to be one of Asia’s leading digital asset custodians. The company says it’s “fully licensed, insured, and provides bank-grade custody for digital assets.”

Hex Trust is reportedly led by experienced banking technologists and “award-winning” financial markets. The company has developed a proprietary platform – Hex Safe™ – that “delivers a flexible custody solution for banks, financial institutions, asset managers, exchanges, and corporations to safely, securely, and efficiently operate in the digital asset ecosystem.”

As explained by Hex Trust:

‘”Through Hex Safe™, clients can access liquidity providers, exchanges and lending & staking platforms, enabling seamless access to services while assets are held in our highly-secure and regulated platform. Hex Trust has offices in Hong Kong and Singapore.”

As covered in April 2020, Hex Trust became the very first licensed crypto-asset custodian in Hong Kong to integrate its services with R3’s Corda platform.

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KeyBank & Laurel Road Unveils Digital Bank Specifically for Doctors

Laurel Road, a brand of KeyBank, announced earlier this week the launch of Laurel Road for Doctors, a digital bank specifically for physicians and dentists. According to Laurel, the goal of the new digital bank is to help ease the burden for doctors of paying down student debt, finding more balance between work and life, and planning for the future—many of whom have worked tirelessly through the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With Laurel Road for Doctors, Laurel Road and KeyBank expand on its existing suite of tailored digital banking and lending products and extensive experience working directly with doctors to create a platform that meets the distinct challenges of this community.”

. The online experience, from originations to servicing tools, will include new offerings such as:

  • Student Loan Cashback Credit Card: The only credit card that offers 2% cashback to pay down student loans with most loan servicers.
  • Student Loan Refi & Linked Savings: Link new savings accounts when refinancing student loans to build savings while obtaining an even lower interest rate.
  • High Yield Savings Account: Qualified borrowers can open an account and earn 10x the national average Annual Percentage Yield (APY), with $0 to open, no minimum balance, and no monthly maintenance fees to fast-track savings goals.
  • Financial Insights: Personalized data and guidance that allows doctors to compare against those in similar specialties on salary, debt and more, utilize educational content to build financial literacy, and access custom insights for budgeting.
  • Laurel Road Perks!: Exclusive offers, discounts and benefits through a newly established and growing partner network of premium brand partners such as P.volve, Sakara, Rent the Runway, Brooklinen, KidPass, Talkspace and The White Coat Investor.
  • Premium Care Team: Financial healthcare support specialists to provide personalized care seven days a week.

While speaking about the launch, Chris Gorman, Chairman and CEO of KeyCorp, added:

“We acquired Laurel Road in 2019 with the intention of scaling this digital born business. Through this new digital bank offering we are able to provide a secure online experience and customized banking solutions to meet the special needs of physicians and dentists.”

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Reserve Bank of India Governor:Local Fintech Startups May Compete with to Offer Digital Financial Services

Digital payments in India are being increasingly adopted by businesses and individual consumers. Online lending platforms are also becoming more popular in the country that’s home to around 1.5 billion residents.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has introduced several initiatives that are aimed at supporting the nation’s $3 trillion formal economy. The RBI, like other central banks across the globe, has been focused on addressing issues related to data privacy and security.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has stated that Fintech firms that maintain active business operations may begin to challenge incumbents.

As first reported by MoneyControl.com, Das noted that the Fintech industry will be presenting a  challenge to traditional financial services and may experience “exponential” growth in the coming years. Financial technology solutions for improving customer services should also reduce operational costs and further expand the nation’s banking and non-banking sectors, Das added.

One of the major industry growth contributors will be digital payments and online lending, according to Indian officials.

Das added that many more digital platforms may emerge as key pieces across nearly all market segments in the Indian banking sector. He pointed out that all digital firms may provide their services directly to clients or via established banks serving as their “agents” or “associates.”

While commenting on the banks’ operations, Das said that large national service providers and smaller regional companies would benefit from modern IT systems. This innovative tech infrastructure should be developed to address the “exponential” increase in the number of digital transactions, Das noted.

In another report from local sources, earlier this month, it has been estimated that India’s Fintech sector may be valued as high as $160 billion within the next 4 years.

Major crypto firms have also announced plans to work with Indian players. Recently, digital asset marketplace Coinbase revealed that it will be hiring tech professionals in India. This, despite the nation’s authorities not having a clear stance on how they intend to regulate cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Coinbase isn’t the only foreign company to support India’s crypto initiatives. Leading digital assets firm Binance had acquired Indian virtual currency exchange WazirX, meanwhile, Block.one, a major blockchain firm, has invested millions of dollars into the operations of CoinDCX, a local Indian crypto exchange.

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