In June, some of the world’s largest financial institutions pumped almost £50 million into Fnality International for the delivery of the Utility Settlement Coin (USC) project.
USC is a digital cash settlement asset, used to settle tokenized value transactions backed by fiat currency held at a central bank.
Andrea Melville, managing director of commercialisation and propositions for global transaction banking at Lloyds Banking Group, is also a board member of Fnality. She successfully acquired investment for Series-A funding in the consortium, the first investment in a blockchain consortium that the bank has made.
“USC is pre-funded and pegged directly to existing currency, so it’s not going to fluctuate in value like cryptocurrency,” says Melville. “The development of USC is being undertaken with a strong understanding and respect for how payments and settlements work, which – as a low-risk bank – is a concept that we can get on board with and one that has value in the real cross-border environment as we move towards instant payments.”