ING announced today that it has spun out Loan Optics to vc trade GmbH, the leading digital platform in the market for private placement and promissory note loans.

Loan Optics technology enables all stakeholders in the syndicated loan market (banks, borrowers, lawyers, advisers and agents) to cooperate on one central platform to originate, structure, document and negotiate digitally native loans – creating digital loan data in the process. 

Loan Optic’s functionalities will be integrated into the already existing and still evolving vc trade platform to further enhance their loan collaboration solution. As part of the transaction, ING will become a shareholder in vc trade. Loan Optics and vc trade are backed by market leaders in the syndicated loan industry. Combining the most relevant solutions in the market will strongly favor the long-awaited development towards digitizing the loan markets.

Jeroen Plag, global head of strategy & innovation at ING commented: “After spinning out Stemly Pyctor and recently SparQ from ING, Loan Optics has been another innovation success story for ING. ING incubated Loan Optics leveraging ING’s innovation expertise, deep digital data knowledge and continuous input and feedback from major players in the syndicated loan market who acted as participants in the Loan Optics Working Group. We have found the perfect partner in vc trade to scale the Loan Optics technology to the next stage and to get it implemented much faster across the industry through vc trade’s existing customer base.”

Stefan Fromme, Co-Founder and Managing Partner vc trade: “Our longstanding partnership with ING and concurring view on how the lending business will develop are building the fundament to join forces. Looking at the synergies and the highly complementary product offering of Loan Optics and vc trade, we strongly believe that the acquisition of Loan Optics and the combination of the Loan Optics technology and the vc trade platform will add significant value to the loan markets and offer unparalleled benefits for borrowers, banks, lawyers and agents alike. Digital loan negotiation and data creation now have a real chance to become the new market standard, in particular as leveraging on the vc trade client base of roughly 1000 banks and institutional investors allows a fast roll-out of the combined product offering. Winning ING as a shareholder in addition underpins the market recognition already gained by vc trade and proves once again that our bank and borrower-centric business model fully meets the market´s needs and expectations.”

Combining the Loan Optics technology with vc trade’s existing platform allows for enhanced roll-out of the cutting-edge technology. Having been developed in close collaboration with market leaders in the lending markets, it is truly a platform build by the industry, for the industry.