CashOnLedger: The key to using blockchain will be getting the Euro in Smart Contracts
We at CashOnLedger have been interviewed by BTC Echo. In this interview, we explained what are we doing in CashOnLedger and how the euros works on the blockchain. We found that there is still a lack of interfaces to connect traditional banking with the crypto world. Therefore, this is the reason why we established CashOnLedger.
Serkan Katilmis, Maximilian Forster, Hsiao-En Chen, Ya-Fang Cheng
BTC-ECHO: What was your motivation to found CashOnLedger?
Maximilian: During my time at Accenture the following problem arose: Whenever Smart Contracts had triggered certain automation processes, we had no way to monetize that process. In other words, the link between smart contracts and our financial infrastructure was missing. We then looked at how blockchain technology could be combined with the euro.
BTC-ECHO: You are compatible with the existing banking infrastructure. Then how much blockchain is remaining in your solution?
Serkan: We are building exactly this bridge. We have brought the euro to the blockchain. In concrete terms, this means that we are tying in with the traditional financial infrastructure — but using blockchains to do so. This allows the euro to be transferred to the blockchain system. We use the Smart Contracts and Asset Tokenization from Ethereum using Quorum/Pantheon to build the bridge to the traditional financial world.
BTC-ECHO: How does the transformation from Fiat currency to Token work? You write from Euro on-chain via IBAN. How can I understand that?
Maximilian: As soon as you become a B2B customer with us, you open a bank account and have to go through the corresponding KYC and AML processes. The IBAN you receive when you open an account with us is linked to an Ethereum Wallet. In other words, the Ethereum Wallet is a digital twin of the IBAN. If money is then transferred to the corresponding IBAN by SEPA transfer, a corresponding token representation of the Euros also takes place in the Ethereum Wallet. These tokens can then be connected to our Smart Contracts based on the ERC-20 standard.
BTC-ECHO: That is, Fiat money is tokenized. But in the end, we have to re-tokenize into the classical Fiat world, don’t we?
Maximilian: Exactly. Therefore, transactions can only be carried out between parties that are in the system. You can only send money to the Ethereum Public Chain to a limited extent and that would involve a lot of effort.
BTC-ECHO: Topic Applications. Where do you see reasonable use cases for your system?
Serkan: CashOnLedger’s long-term vision is to become the machine-to-machine payment provider. We want to integrate IoT machines such as drones into the economic cycle through financial transactions. Machines function according to their coding, thus can be connected well to Smart Contracts. It will take some time before this becomes a reality. However, the system can already be used today for so-called pay-per-use cases by building a dynamic leasing model with blockchain technology. Specifically, this means that the machine is invoiced on the basis of its usage intensity and not rigidly according to a classic financing or leasing model.
BTC-ECHO: How does transaction verification work? How do you solve the dilemma between de-centralization and scaling?
Maximilian: Since we use the Ethereum Client, the problem with us is not so much the technical scalability as the business infrastructure that has yet to be created. These are the classic problems: What are the transaction fees? As a German machine supplier, would you also like to work with a Spanish financial services provider? Which bank do you use? Then there are also technical questions: Should you also give machines a wallet? Then who’s liable?
BTC-ECHO: You are currently adding this crypto option to your existing banking system. Do you see in perspective that infrastructures such as SWIFT could one day be replaced?
Serkan: We are currently staying away from this topic. We want our customers to be able to make automated payments to their customers. We, therefore, focus on connecting banks to industrial groups, which in turn can use the blockchain for automation processes.
BTC-ECHO: Regulation also plays a major role. How about your company? Do the authorities still have to approve your draft? What are the obstacles?
Maximilian: We have already received a license for our model. Accordingly, we comply with the existing regulations. But we also demand the same from our partners. For example, if the partner issues an IBAN, he needs a banking license — because we don’t have one. But with the help of our system, we can check this very efficiently.
BTC-ECHO: What are your next steps, what’s the next step?
Serkan: Our roadmap now includes the question of which German banks we can work with. This means that by partnering with a bank, we want to achieve level two of the e-money license. Compliance with the EU’s new anti-money laundering directive is, of course, currently a major issue. Ultimately, however, we want to implement the first applications for our customers soon in order to effectively demonstrate the advantages of our technology.
Conclusions
We are at CashOnLedger and creating the programmable Euro based on Blockchain Technology combined with an E-Money license. We provide solutions to enable smart contracts to come to life by combining Blockchain Technology with the established financial services ecosystem. We do this by creating a bridge between the bank account and the blockchain wallet so that the Euros in the bank account are represented digitally in the Blockchain wallet in the form of tokens. This allows a variety of autonomous payment processes, where human interaction is not necessary anymore. Overall, we have built the regulatory compliant answer to fully digital currency and hence give financial services provider in Europe the chance to strike back against Facebook’s Libra and other advancing nations such as China.
Remarks
It’s our great honour to share this article to you, we are welcome you to share it with your friends and colleagues. Visit the website of CASH ON LEDGER and find out more about getting traditional currencies such as Euro, Swiss Franc, US Dollar on blockchain. Or be frequently updated by following the LinkedIn account of CASH ON LEDGER.
Serkan Katilmis is tech entrepreneur and investor, who has more than 20 years of experience in top-tier management consulting. As CEO of CASH ON LEDGER, he promotes the Euro on blockchain systems such that smart contracts can be used in an industrial setting or in B2B contexts. Prior to that, Serkan was working for leading organizations Goldman Sachs, accenture and PwC as an executive. He holds an MBA from Duke University and completed several executive strategy programs at INSEAD. You can contact him via Linkedin.
Maximilian Forster focuses on business development working for CASH ON LEDGER. He is also in close connection with the blockchain ecosystem being a co-founder of the Blockchain Bayern e.V., member of INATBA and member of the Blockchain Taskforce at Bitkom e.V.; previously, he helped to build up the DLT and blockchain service offering of KPMG and Accenture and worked on the blockchain investment strategy for Picus Capital. He is also in close connection with financial organizations and industrial companies: e.g., he has contributed to the Goethe University Frankfurt’s “Digital Banking Practical Handbook” and DHL’s “Blockchain in Logistics” publication. You can contact him via Linkedin.
Hsiao-En Chen studied TUM-BWL at the Technical University of Munich. Her fields of interests are mainly blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, e-commerce. She participated in several projects related to Fin-tech applications, previously worked as an Assistant editor in “MIS Review” and Research Assistant in the Department of Management Information Systems in National Chenchi University, Taiwan. You can contact her via Linkedin.
Ya-Fang Cheng has studied Finance and Informatics at Technical University of Munich (TUM). As an professional auditor in PricewaterhouseCoopers(Pwc) for two years, she had advanced her practical experiences in the field of finance and business by providing audit and tax assurance service to multinational corporations. Further, she is also an active attendee of various blockchain and technology forums. You can contact her via e-mail or Linkedin.
Reference
BTC-ECHO (2019).CashOnLedger in Interview: “Wir haben den Euro auf die Blockchain gebracht”. Retrieved from https://www-btc--echo-de.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.btc-echo.de/cashonledger-im-interview-wir-haben-den-euro-auf-die-blockchain-gebracht/amp/ (accessed 25 November 2019).
