Fnality International Ltd., a blockchain company backed by large banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS Group AG, is assessing candidates to take on the reins of the firm following plans by CEO Rhomaios Ram to retire.
Ram, 60, has made the company’s board aware of his intention to step down, but will continue to serve until a successor is appointed and the transition takes place smoothly, a spokesperson for the London-based firm confirmed to Bloomberg News.
Fnality is one of the most ambitious enterprise projects using blockchain technology and enables banks to transact in a digital cash asset backed 1-to-1 with funds at the Bank of England. The company, which launched its Sterling payments system around a year ago, is working on securing regulatory approval to launch digital versions of other major currencies such as the dollar and euro. Its ambition is to make it easier and faster for banks to settle transactions between each other, by providing the cash leg of deals involving tokenized traditional assets.
While blockchain adoption in mainstream finance has progressed slower than expected, large financial institutions have moved forward with tokenization plans. Goldman is speaking with potential partners as it plans to spin out its digital-assets platform into a new company for large financial firms to create, trade and settle financial instruments via blockchain technology, Bloomberg reported this week.
BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest asset manager, in March unveiled its first tokenized mutual fund, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund. The firm is now pushing to have the fund’s native digital token more widely used as collateral for crypto derivatives, Bloomberg News reported last month.
Fnality was founded in 2019 but originated several years earlier from a UBS-led blockchain project. 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 had secured its last investment from backers including UBS, Banco Santander SA and Barclays Plc.
