NAME: 1. How did you personally become involved in blockchain?
In 2017, I started working on our small and medium business financing platform where the idea was to collect financial data on businesses from alternative sources such as point of sale systems, billing and accounting systems, etc., and then use the data for credit risk assessment. Our system was first built as a cloud-hosted, client-server SaaS application and then we realized that businesses did not want to share financial data to a centralized data store such as ours, and lenders were not willing to trust credit assessments based on data that was prone to manipulation by businesses. And that is how we got started on blockchain— essentially using it to record financial data in a distributed manner and yet not being prone to manipulation.
2. What does your firm do/offer within the blockchain sector?
Our business is a financial services platform that issues structured investment products to investors, and uses the capital raised to invest in a variety of assets such as private equity, private debt, etc. We use blockchain technology in applications we use or plan to use for risk assessment, investment management and issuing.
3. What is your role within your firm and what do you do there on any given day?
Verified is a group of companies based across Switzerland, India, Singapore and Luxembourg. I am the founder of the group and my role spans different functions but on any given day, most of my time goes to business development and product management.
4. What area/s of blockchain do you believe will grow the most in the coming 5 years?
Applications in financial services is a good target for blockchains due to high volumes, lots of time spent in administering services, and high cost of intermediaries. Applications in capital markets, financing, investment management, payments, custody, insurance, etc are already being piloted and deployed by many companies. Apart from financial services, I think supply chain management is another area where blockchains would add significant value.
5. What do you believe the next major innovation in financial technology will be and why?
I think a major but often not very appreciated aspect of digital financial services are that of identity management and custody services for digital assets. I think there is a large need for these basic services and I expect innovation and deployment of services and applications in these areas.
6. What are the biggest problems facing the blockchain industry in the future?
The biggest challenges facing blockchain based applications would be regulatory in nature, and I would expect that a lot of countries will not be as progressive as others and a lot of them will be somewhat protectionist of their traditional markets.
7. What has been the biggest success in your firm to date?
Although I won’t still count it as a “success,” I think the single biggest “right” thing we have done is to get our regulatory and legal structure done well from the beginnning. While we apply the best of breed technology including blockchains, I wanted to make sure that we are compliant with regulations and that our products and technology play is not removed from the realities of being a financial services business.
8. What has been the biggest failure in your firmand how did you adapt?
We are a young business and so far, we have not made a large mistake. I would like to stay clear of failures for the longest time possible!
9. What blockchain leader do you admire the most and why?
I like the work Emin Gun Sirer of Cornell University has done in the blockchain and largely the distributed systems space.
10. How do you feel consumers (or if more relevant for your firm – businesses) are adapting to the facet of blockchain that your company operates within?
Customers, whether they are consumers or businesses, ultimately care about the value we add to them and not the technology we use to deliver that value. So, if we are able to deliver on our promise of lower costs of transactions, greater reach to investors, and data privacy, I believe our customers would continue appreciating the work we do.
11. If you were to personally invest in just one blockchain firm (other than yours), which one would it be and why?
I have been following Nivaura in the space we work in.
Kallol Borah is a serial entrepreneur who has started and run business ventures across the UK, India, Japan and Switzerland. His interests are in technology, media, telecom, and financial services. He is currently working on a Zurich based financial services venture called Verified AG that enables asset managers to issue investment products to qualified investors and deploy capital in alternative asset classes around the world. Kallol is an alumni of the London School of Economics.