Itaú, Wells Fargo and StanChart make $100m club loan on blockchain – FinTech Futures

Itaú Unibanco has borrowed $100 million through a club loan from Standard Chartered (SC) and Wells Fargo.

In parallel Itaú Unibanco and SC have successfully concluded the development and testing of a blockchain club loan proof of concept (PoC) that expedites the negotiation of club loans using R3’s Corda Connect platform.

“The PoC demonstrated blockchain’s potential to reduce costs and gains in efficiency in the process of negotiation of the agreement and at other stages of the traditional transactions involving a Club Loan”, says Germana Cruz, head of financial institutions Latin America at Standard Chartered.

Through the blockchain PoC, the participants were able to monitor loan agreement revisions, comments and the sequence of approvals, as well as tack an audit every change before the deal was closed.

Test simulations were conducted across three stages: negotiation of terms and conditions, including the revision of the loan agreement; the signatory process, delivering what was agreed in the preceding stage; and the signing itself.

The banks say that negotiating an agreement through blockchain eliminates the exchange of e-mails, prevents version control issues of agreements and allows participants to ensure that conditions precedent are fulfilled in real time.