(Bloomberg) — Fnality International Ltd., a blockchain company backed by major banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS Group AG, is evaluating candidates to take the reins of the company following CEO Rhomaios Ram’s retirement plans .
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Ram, 60, has told the company’s board of directors of his intention to step down, but he will continue to serve until a successor is named and the transition is smooth, a spokesperson for the London-based company told Bloomberg News.
Fnality is one of the most ambitious enterprise projects using blockchain technology and allows banks to transact a digital monetary asset backed 1:1 with funds from the Bank of England. The company, which launched its British pound payment system about a year ago, is working to gain regulatory approval to launch digital versions of other major currencies such as the dollar and the euro. Its ambition is to make it easier and faster for banks to settle transactions between themselves, by providing the cash portion of transactions involving tokenized traditional assets.
While blockchain adoption in traditional finance has progressed more slowly than expected, large financial institutions have moved forward with their tokenization plans. Goldman is talking to potential partners as it plans to transform its digital assets platform into a new company allowing large financial firms to create, trade and settle financial instruments via blockchain technology, a Bloomberg reported this week.
BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, unveiled its first tokenized mutual fund, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, in March. The company is now pushing for the fund’s native digital token to be more widely used as collateral for crypto derivatives, Bloomberg News reported last month.
Fnality was founded in 2019 but emerged several years earlier from a blockchain project led by UBS. A year ago, it raised £77.7 million ($95.2 million) in a funding round led by Goldman and BNP Paribas SA. The round came four years after Fnality’s secured its latest investment from backers including UBS, Banco Santander SA and Barclays Plc.
–With help from Emily Nicolle.
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