NatWest has become the first bank to go live on Fusion LenderComm, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform for the syndicated loan market developed by a consortium of banks in collaboration with Finastra and R3.
The online marketplace - which entailed input from seven global banks including State Street, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, HSBC and ING - is designed to bring more transparency and efficiency to the heavily manual loan market, using blockchain technology to communicate between lenders and agents to assure messages are secure and confidential.
Using the platform, NatWest will be able to specify and publish lender-specific deal information to Fusion LenderComm in real-time, while its lenders can view this data which was previously only periodically provided by fax from agents or through telephone or email queries from lenders.
While the first phase of the platform has focused on real-time position reporting between lenders, a roadmap has been developed with the aim of transforming all aspects of syndicated lending from deal set-up and syndicate building through to settlement.
Trish Arksey, lending programme director for NatWest, says: “We are excited about the possibilities that this platform offers to transform the syndicated loan market. We are investing in cutting-edge technologies and working with our suppliers and partners to deliver first class customer service and efficiency to a market that has not changed significantly in the last 20 years.”