The Swiss crypto bank is joining up with fintech FQX to put a common financial instrument popularized in the Middle Ages onto blockchain.
Credit instruments like promissory notes were popularized in 12th century Italy, and still play a considerable role for credit transfers today: Sygnum wants to put them on blockchain, it said in a statement on Thursday.
The Zurich-based bank is joining up with FQX, a Swiss start-up, on a so-called enote, or electronic form of promissory note. The instrument offers instant settlement, with liquidity flowing directly from investors to businesses, at a lower cost. Sygnum and FQX, which are in turn working with Swisscom, said the move will also reduce counterparty and fraud risk.
Pegged to Swiss Franc
Specifically, the digital exchange will take place via Sygnum's Swiss franc stablecoin, DCHF, which is pegged 1:1 to the Swiss currency. The enotes are registered and stored on a distributed ledger maintained by Swisscom, which provides the electronic signatures used to securely issue and transfer them on FQX's platform.
The introduction of the digital credit notes represent an expansion of Sygnum's digital asset offering. Besides its own stablecoin, the one-year-old bank is also part of tokenized share platform Daura, co-operated by Swisscom, and CMTA.
