InfoCorp Launches Sentinel Chain Consortium Programme
1st September 2020: Singapore-based fintech solutions provider, InfoCorp, launched the Sentinel Chain Consortium Programme to onboard strategic fintech and agritech partners onto Sentinel Chain — the world’s first international platform to accept the use of livestock as collateral via a consortium blockchain.
One of the limitations faced by smallholder farmers in collateralizing their livestock includes the lack of a systematic approach to verifying their ownership of livestock. There is also no verified system to help convert the value of livestock into dollars and cents. This leaves smallholder farmers helpless in the face of uncertain times such as the COVID-19 pandemic when they require bank loans but are unable to provide legally recognized collateral in return. Sentinel Chain addresses this issue by creating a digital system to quantify, identify and verify livestock ownership at the local market level, enabling unbanked farmers to finally unlock the value of their livestock assets. This, in turn, paves the way for them to receive livestock insurance and collateralizable loans. Coupled with a pool of offshore investors, access to credit becomes cheaper and faster, providing these farmers with a comprehensive suite of financial services that empower them to partake in the global economy.
About Sentinel Chain Consortium Programme
Southeast Asia’s poultry production is expected to reach 12.3 million metric tons (mmt) by 2028 from 9.2 mmt in 2018, up to 80% of which is provided by smallholder farmers. As such, it is crucial for these farmers to verify their livestock as capital, ensuring that their assets can be monetized. The Sentinel Chain consortium allow agritech partners to bring their farm customers onto the network and tokenize their livestock as digital asset. Through its crowdfunding partners, Sentinel Chain will facilitate investors from around the world to finance these smallholder farmers. InfoCorp will provide the necessary technical onboarding support and blockchain training through this programme to help partners fast track the adoption of Sentinel Chain to accelerate growth for their business.
This also opens up opportunities for Singaporeans who want a piece of the agricultural industry in Southeast Asia but are unable to due to the country’s innate problem of scarcity of land. While vertical farming has seen a boom in recent years, raising livestock, in particular, requires a large amount of real estate. Through Sentinel Chain’s consortium partners, Singaporeans are now able to invest in smallholder farmers across the region in a transparent and secure manner, assured of its legitimacy through the digitalization of livestock assets.
“Sentinel Chain was invented to address financial inclusion for smallholder farmers by creating a global marketplace for real-world livestock asset on the blockchain. With this programme, Sentinel Chain will be bridging the gap between fintech and agritech to empower farmers with the tools to scale their business in a safe and secure manner while providing investors from around the world a platform to invest in Southeast Asian livestock.” - Founder and CEO of InfoCorp, Roy Lai.
Introducing Our New Consortium Partner - iFarmer
Marking the programme’s launch, InfoCorp has also partnered with iFarmer, a Bangladesh-based online platform that connects small-scale farmers with retail investors. Through this collaboration, both companies will turn livestock into collateral by creating a blockchain-based platform through Sentinel Chain and its utilization of RFID tagging designed to be both tamper and theft-proof. The iFarmer app will then be used by farmers and farm facilitators to collect farmers profiles and update farm information, resulting in access to financial services for Bangladeshi livestock farmers.
Moving forward, InfoCorp looks to provide an all-encompassing platform for both smallholder farmers and offshore investors to connect. Through Sentinel Chain, the local fintech company aims to eradicate poverty among smallholder farmers by empowering them with the right financial tools and the ability to have their livestock legally recognized as capital. InfoCorp looks to partner with more companies in the future, allowing for a wider network of farmers to be positively impacted by its solutions.
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About InfoCorp
Founded in 2015 with headquarters in Singapore, InfoCorp Technologies’ aim as an integrated FinTech and AgriTech company is to bring inclusive financial services to the livestock industry in emerging markets via its blockchain-based platform, FarmTrek. FarmTrek was successfully piloted with two Myanmar government agencies and launched in 2019. Following this success, InfoCorp has partnered with the Rwanda government to launch a project, joined the Smart Africa Alliance as a Private Sector member, and showcased FarmTrek at the Afro-Asia Fintech Festival organized by MAS and Central Bank of Kenya. The company has won the first prize for the ASEAN SME Category of the MAS Fintech Festival Award in 2019 and is chosen to be a recipient of the Dubai Expo2020 Innovation Impact Award out of 4000+ applicants around the world. Bringing together the best talent across the globe, InfoCorp has staff in Rwanda, Myanmar, India, Vietnam, Argentina, and the US.
