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We are building a new payment system that will enable tokenised, peer-to-peer markets.
Fnality Global Payments (FnGP) will comprise a series of national systems, each regulated in its home jurisdiction. We call each of these a Fnality Payment System (FnPS)
In each payment system, a Fnality settlement asset will act as the settlement/payment asset for any Payment (P), Delivery v, Payment (DvP) or payment vs. payment (PvP) need.
A way to move real world assets into a blockchain; converting the rights to assets with economic value (such as currency) into a digital token which can be stored and managed on a blockchain network.
Financial Markets are currently intermediated by Financial Market Infrastructures (FMIs) or Financial Market Utilities (FMUs). These infrastructures exist with the express purpose of providing shared processes that are explicitly designed to reduce cost and various types of operational complexity and risk. Examples are exchanges, clearing houses, and payments systems.
A distributed FMI (dFMI) is a new design of FMI. It distributes the function of an FMI across the user base, so that users are both consumers and providers of the system. It is based on the combination of distributed protocols, cryptography and economic mechanism design that meet the principles of FMI guidelines published by BIS.
Payment with Fnality means that the contractual obligations are discharged under the local settlement finality statutes or legal arrangements.
Settlement using a Fnality Payment System is final and irrevocable.
The five central banks whose currencies are in the initial scope are aware of our work.
We completed our research phase in 2019, and as of now we are working with the Central Banks on the account opening formalities that they require of a new payment system.
In August 2022 Fnality was recognised by HM Treasury as a systemic payment system in the UK, bringing us under the remit of the Bank of England and the Payment Systems Regulator. We are engaging with the Bank of England and, subject to regulatory approval, we aim to go live with the UK payment system in H2 2023.
We continue our formal engagements with other central banks with anticipated account openings in 2023-24.
Yes, each local Fnality Payment System will be a regulated payment system in accordance with local laws.
Our expectation is that during 2023-24 we will be given approval by the first set of central banks, and subsequently go live with first use cases.
Initially, five currencies are in scope: CAD, EUR, GBP, JPY & USD.
Further currencies will be added in due course.
Once we have demonstrated the successful operation of first use cases on the system, there will be four ingredients which we can add to the mix:
We know what those ingredients are, we just don't know yet how we will mix them and in what order.
Importantly, there is no requirement to be a shareholder in order to be a participant.
No. The desired scope of a Fnality settlement asset, as a payment asset, is for use in the Wholesale Markets; exactly which participants in that segment can hold a Fnality settlement asset will be determined during the regulatory approval process.
Regarding systemic risk, FnGP will reduce reliance on intraday unsecured credit.
Regarding credit risk, FnGP will be an enabler for faster settlement. We expect that the availability of FnGP will lead to PvP and DvP settlement being possible on an instant basis. If the settlement cycle is compressed the counterpart and credit risk exposures in the balance sheet are reduced.
Employing a distributed payments system will make the Fnality settlement asset more resilient to systemic operational risk than existing payment systems.
In traditional FMI systems there is highly centralised heavy-duty processing, with at least one, if not two heavy-duty backup sites.
In a distributed system, the multiple participants provide that backup, with no one participant being significant. The processing power in this system is also provided by this network of participants.
