Today it was announced that ConsenSys has landed a deal with Allfunds, the fund distribution platform with more than $1.5 trillion in assets under administration. In September last year, the funds company unveiled a new blockchain subsidiary.
We believe the Allfunds solution is not yet in production (awaiting confirmation) and already uses a permissioned version of Ethereum. Going forward, ConsenSys will help implement the solution on ConsenSys Quorum, the open-source version of Ethereum initiated by JP Morgan and now managed by ConsenSys. Allfunds developed a proprietary Privacy Plugin, and it’s unclear whether this will be needed when Quorum is used.
“We selected ConsenSys Quorum to be our enterprise blockchain protocol because of its significant adoption in enterprise blockchain and the ongoing development and support ConsenSys provides,” said Ruben Nieto, Managing Director at Allfunds Blockchain.
Allfunds also previously participated in Iberpay’s blockchain smart payments trials.
Generally, funds distribution platforms connect asset managers with distributors such as banks that sell mutual funds to their clients. Instead of every bank needing to connect to each asset manager, they connect to a fund distribution platform to place the orders and sometimes also for settlement. In Allfunds’ case, it is a regulated bank.
Allfunds was founded in Spain in 2000 by Santander with Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo buying a 50% stake three years later. In 2017 private equity firm Hellman & Friedman (past investments: F1, Nasdaq) and Singapore sovereign fund GIC bought the company. Since then, Credit Suisse took a minority stake following Allfunds’ acquisition of a Credit Suisse company.
The assets under administration have doubled since September 2020, presumably part driven by COVID-19.
