Tokenized Cash Fintech Fnality Raises $95M Led by Goldman and BNP Paribas

Fnality, a fintech firm building tokenized versions of major currencies collateralized by cash held at central banks, has raised $95 million (£77.7m) in Series B funding led by Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas.

DTCC, Euroclear, Nomura and WisdomTree participated in the round, which also saw further commitment from a number of banks that backed Fnality’s $63m fundraise back in 2019: Banco Santander, BNY Mellon, Barclays, CIBC, Commerzbank, ING, Lloyds Banking Group, Nasdaq Ventures, State Street, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and UBS.

The tokenization of traditional finance assets on permissioned, or in some cases public blockchains like Ethereum, is a buzzy topic of late. Fnality, previously known as the Utility Settlement Coin project, is something of an OG when it comes to bringing cash on chain to achieve delivery versus payment (DvP) for wholesale banking using shared ledgers.

“Our Series B funding round represents the financial sector’s desire for a central bank money backed blockchain-based settlement solution that bridges the gap between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) in wholesale markets,” Rhomaios Ram, CEO of Fnality International said in a statement.

Goldman Sachs head of digital assets Mathew McDermott called Fnality a “key enabler” in the growing tokenization trend. “Fnality’s application of blockchain technology offers a resilient way for institutions to use central bank funds across a wide set of potential use cases, including instantaneous, cross-border, cross-currency payments, collateral mobility, and security transactions,” he said.