InfoCorp announces Strategic Cooperation with Crowdo — the First Financial Service Provider to join Sentinel Chain in providing P2P loan services
A milestone achievement for the financial inclusion project
Singapore — 15 February 2018 — InfoCorp Technologies the company behind Sentinel Chain, a blockchain-based financial inclusion services marketplace — is proud to announce a strategic partnership and cooperation with Crowdo, a crowdfunding and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform in the ASEAN region.
This marks a milestone achievement for Sentinel Chain — Crowdo is the First Financial Service Provider partner to join Sentinel Chain in providing P2P loan services on the platform.
Crowdo is the first lending platform that is fully licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the Financial Services Authority of Indonesia (OJK) and the Securities Commission Malaysia. Sentinel Chain will be the first B2B blockchain-based marketplace to accept the use of livestock as collateral.
Through this partnership, the Crowdo lending platform will integrate with Sentinel Chain and open new and emerging markets for Crowdo’s network of financial service providers. Due to factors such as high cost, scalability and risk, entry into such underbanked markets are usually challenging for offshore investors. At the same time, the collaboration with Crowdo will allow the ASEAN rural farmers to gain greater access to a wider network and community of qualified lenders who will be providing them with competitive interest rates for their loans.
“Sentinel Chain is excited to have Crowdo coming onboard as our first Financial Service Provider partner for the Sentinel Chain. This partnership has completed the ecosystem that Sentinel Chain is creating by bridging overseas lenders to a new untapped market of unbanked communities that can gain access to livestock-collateralised loans.”
Roy Lai, CEO of Sentinel Chain
With their mutual intentions to promote financial inclusion, Sentinel Chain’s collaboration with Crowdo will not only open new markets but will connect the underbanked to greater financial services traditionally unavailable to them. The partnership will bridge the unbanked to a larger pool of qualified offshore lenders by providing low-cost, customized financial services — thus increasing their access to affordable finance.
Securing affordable finance has been a pain point for a majority of unbanked smallholder farmers. Without a proper credit history and recognised asset, they are locked out of the formal financial economy and left to rely on costly financing at extremely high interest rates.
“…farmers (in Myanmar) have limited access to competitive agricultural loans, so most of them have to rely on costly financing at high interest rates, sometimes of more than 5% per month.”
U Thadoe Hein, Managing Director,
Myanmar Awba Group Oxford Business Group
The Sentinel Chain is a consortium blockchain that operates within decentralized governance and is connected to multiple local CrossPay Blockchains. In doing so, Sentinel Chain and CrossPay Blockchains create a hub-and-spoke ecosystem specifically designed to provide a low-cost cross-border financial infrastructure. Such an infrastructure will provide liquidity to the local unbanked population via an international network of financial providers.
Sentinel Chain’s cooperation with Crowdo will significantly expand the network of offshore and P2P lenders through the integration with Sentinel Chain — offering greater access to affordable finance for the smallholder farmers in ASEAN. Thus accelerating our joint mission to help free the unbanked from the heavy chain of high cost financing.
“Crowdo is absolutely thrilled to be entering this partnership with InfoCorp for Sentinel Chain. Through such a collaboration, Crowdo advances its mission for financial inclusion, and the innovative usage of blockchain will complement perfectly our own proprietary Artificial Intelligence based due diligence engine, Crowdo ACE”.
Leo Shimada, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Crowdo
Sentinel Chain is a project by InfoCorp Technologies and planning its initial coin offering (ICO) in March 2018. It is a blockchain-based international marketplace for cross-border financial services and the world’s first platform to accept the use of livestock as collateral. Taking a unique approach to the last mile problem of financial inclusion, the Sentinel Chain model establishes livestock provenance through the creation of livestock insurance on blockchain — the registration of livestock provenance on blockchain provides the unbanked with a new opportunity: the real possibility of accepting livestock as ‘collateral’ for loans.
Crowdo is a Capital Market Intermediary licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore for the purposes of Securities Crowdfunding. Crowdo’s P2P lending platform is an online marketplace connecting pre-qualified small medium size enterprises (SMEs) issuing debt securities with Crowdo investor members who are seeking competitive interest rate return.
To learn more about Sentinel Chain:
Website: https://sentinel-chain.org
Medium: https://medium.com/sentinelchain
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sentinelchain
Telegram: https://t.me/sentinelchain
Announcements: https://t.me/sentinel_ANN
