Finastra has been recognized in Global Finance Magazine’s sixth annual awards for innovation in financial services. The company is among a select list of banks and Fintechs named in “The Innovators 2018” list, receiving an award for Fusion LenderComm – a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform that provides real-time exchange of deal information between agents and lenders to drive transparency in the syndicated loan market. This is the second award for the platform in just a few months.

Launched in April this year, Fusion LenderComm was developed in conjunction with several leading global banks and is underpinned by R3’s DLT-based platform, Corda. In its first phase, the solution directly integrates with agent bank loan servicing platforms, such as Finastra’s Fusion Loan IQ, exposing real-time syndicated loan information including accrual balances, position information and detailed transaction data to participants on these deals.

“We have big ambitions for Fusion LenderComm and believe it will revolutionize the syndicated lending market, with lenders and agents able to take advantage of the platform to exchange information and transact on deals with greater speed and transparency,” said Simon Paris, Deputy CEO at Finastra. “This is a huge turning point for the industry in terms of efficiency gains and the next step is to build a marketplace for secondary loan trading. Fusion LenderComm is a shining example of our mantra to always try to exceed our customers’ expectations, and to deliver solutions that make measurable improvements to their business. We are thrilled that the platform has been recognized by Global Finance.”

Using the platform, financial institutions acting as agents can specify and publish lender-specific deal information to Fusion LenderComm. Lenders can view this data which was previously only periodically provided by fax from agents or through telephone or email queries from lenders, greatly improving operational efficiency for agent banks and lenders, plus bringing much needed transparency to the syndicated loan market.

“The Innovators 2018 awards are designed to recognize organizations that encourage and support creative thinking and have developed that thinking into viable solutions. We congratulate all the award winners for their innovative achievements,” said Joseph D. Giarraputo, Publisher and Editorial Director of Global Finance.