Blockchain-based trading platform partners with Fiduciam

By Bridging Loan Directory 26th June 2019

WiV Technology, the blockchain-based wine provenance trading platform, has extended its offering to include business loans. Working in partnership with London-based Fiduciam, the institutionally funded and pension-fund owned marketplace lender to entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises, WiV Finance has secured a €100m line of credit and is now in a position to support businesses that have collections of fine and investment-grade wine valued at around €1 million as collateral. There is thought to be fine wine worth around $80bn held in bond and private cellars which could be used as collateral to help businesses grow.

The WiV platform provides an accurate account of how much wine is held in a specific collection. This gives all parties involved in an agreement confidence to support the loan, which is particularly important if it crosses multiple jurisdictions. It is not unusual to have a wine collection stored in one country, owned by someone from a different country that wants a loan to support a business in a third country, and is asking for a loan that is guaranteed by someone in a fourth.

This would be exceptionally complicated to set up using the traditional paper-based approach that has been the norm in the wine sector for the last two hundred years. But, it can now be managed relatively quickly because WiV Finance works in parallel with the WiV wine trading platform, the world’s first erc721 based (Ethereum Request-for-Comment) wine trading solution. WiV has chosen to work with EY OpsChain for the last six months to build the underlying provenance technology.

Trading fine wine can be a complex process that is slowed down by extensive paper trails, bureaucracy and broker processes, all of which add to the total cost of trade. WiV’s blockchain-based approach, the first of its kind, removes many of these speed bumps and makes it faster and easier to trade fine wine.

“The WiV platform has made something that would previously have been prohibitively complicated relatively simple. It’s another example of how our system can make it possible for a wider variety of investors to be involved in the wine industry. We work as an independent party supporting wine merchants, negociants, brokers and château,” says Tommy Nordam Jensen, CEO and founder of WiV. “WiV makes it simple to invest in wine, and now we are making it easier to use wine as collateral for business loans. Offering this facility underlines our philosophy of making the wine industry more liquid so that it can continue to grow efficiently.”

“We are looking forward to working with WiV as its blockchain solution makes it easier to take wine as collateral and reduces the overall risk profile of the wine held as security,” says Johan Groothaert, CEO and founder at Fiduciam. “We are eager to provide loans secured over fine wine in cooperation with WiV”

WiV is in the process of raising funds to bolster the platform as it moves into the next phase of its development. The funding round is expected to close in mid-July.