Singapore fintechs Bluecell and STACS announce collaboration towards industry-wide blockchain-powered infrastructure to support effective green and sustainability-linked loans

SINGAPORE, 31 March 2021 — Bluecell Intelligence Pte Ltd (“Bluecell”) and Hashstacs Pte Ltd (“STACS”) today announced a new collaboration to jointly commercialise an industry-wide common technology infrastructure towards green and sustainability, “GreenSTACS”, which runs on top of STACS’ patent-pending Blockchain technology. The partnership largely focuses on supporting effective green and sustainability-linked loans, among other Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) financing formats.

The agreement formalises the partnership and mutual commitment between Bluecell and STACS at the strategic and working level. Bluecell will connect its live end-to-end loans matching engine integrated with MyInfo, to STACS’ sustainability-enabling technology infrastructure, GreenSTACS, powered by distributed ledger technology (DLT).

STACS is one of the leading Singapore-headquartered fintech development company providing transformative technology to the financial services sector. Its live DLT platforms support the trade lifecycle management of securities, and ESG financing dimensions encompassing green and sustainability-linked bonds and loans. STACS is The Asset Triple A Digital Awards FinTech Start-up of 2021, as well as an award winner in the MAS Global FinTech Innovation Challenge Awards 2020. Recently STACS had announced collaborations with leading institutions like Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Eastspring Investments, and Bursa Malaysia.

Bluecell recently launched a Digital Lending Platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) loans. It strives to provide better solutions and efficient systems through the online platform where loan dealings can be done in a faster and more advanced way. SMEs can reach multiple lenders with just one single application with various financing options. Bluecell is onboarding lenders and partners at a fast pace to provide value and more options to its customers. Most recently, Bluecell announced its partnership with CIMB Bank, to allow SMEs to apply for corporate accounts well as other financing instruments online, to help them with their working capital and transactional needs. 

A key focus in this collaboration is the effective management of green and sustainability-linked loans, which will be spearheaded by STACS. Having done a great deal of work in the green fintech space, the synergistic nexus between different data sources, various technologies, and collaborative efforts from STACS and its partners, can empower not just financial institutions, but entities from all industries to achieve ESG goals through the optimisation and support of  ESG-enabling technologies. As an aggregator of lenders, Bluecell can offer green and sustainability-linked loans. Borrowers with green integrated in their businesses can apply for loans through the platform from pro-green lenders at better-than-market terms. 

The platform is aligned with  Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’s key focus on green fintech. GreenSTACS, as a common technology infrastructure, would enhance the management and monitoring of usage of ESG proceeds through smart contracts, execute real-time immutable tracking of green/sustainable measurables towards impact reports for pivotal actionable insights, incorporate financial incentives to encourage surpassing of sustainability goals, and be the standardised smart ESG data repository for all users. With its partnership with Bluecell, a common infrastructure open to all financiers can be created, to eliminate the risks of double-lending and corporate fraud.

Ray Ferguson, Chairman at STACS, said: “With the world’s focus turning to ESG, financial institutions have a key role to play in the sustainability push of the next decade, and this is where STACS can come in to empower institutions to effectively and easily achieve ESG goals and do their part to create an inclusive and sustainable ecosystem, via our DLT technology.”

Vince Wang, CEO of Bluecell, said: “Apart from large corporations holding opportunities in the participation of issuing and securing green and sustainability-linked bonds and loans respectively, Bluecell hopes to level the playing field for green micro and SMEs that hire 90 per cent of our workforce﹣to obtain adequate financing from sustainability-linked lenders, while enjoying equal treatment and exposure to various opportunities, to that of the big players.”