Synaps Loans announced that it has created and testeda working blockchain solution for servicing syndicatedloans.

Synaps is a joint venture between Ipreo, a fintech and analytics provider, and Symbiont,which provides distributed ledger technology for institutions.

“Synaps now has the majority of the functionality needed toimplement blockchain technology at scale in thesyndicated loan market, which enables us to move into the finalstages of development,” according to Emmanuel Aidoo, head of thedistributed ledger and blockchain effort at Credit Suisse, whichhelped arrange the project. Blockchain consortium R3’s Lab andResearch Center managed testing for the solution.

Aidoo said in a statement, “Over the coming months we will workwith Symbiont and Ipreo to implement the remaining functions toallow for distributed ledger technology to support a syndicatedloan facility from origination to payoff, and work toward marketadoption. The technical and market expertise that the projectparticipants brought to the table means this solution will betailor-made for use in live transactions.”

“With this project we have proven that smart contracts canrevolutionize the entire lifecycle of a loan, from creation tosettlement in secondary trading,” Mark Smith, co-founder and CEO ofSymbiont, said in the statement. “Fifteen different parties playedroles in the final demo, executing bespoke and complex taskson-platform. We look forward to working with these parties todeploy the technology in production.”

On Tuesday, IBM, Natixis and Trafigura, a commodities tradinggroup, introduced a distributed ledger solution to let commoditiestraders conduce U.S. crude oil transactions.

Trading partners on the ledger would be able to share tradedocuments, shipment updates, and delivery and paymentstatus.

The distributed ledger is built on the Linux Foundation’sopen source Hyperledger Fabric, a global blockchaincollaboration between firms across multiple industries, and ishosted on IBM’s Bluemix cloud platform. The project was led by IBMFrance.

Arnaud Stevens, Natixis’ New York head of global energy andcommodities, said in a statement that the company is looking forways to “use blockchain to enhance client service by optimizing theantiquated arena of commodity trade finance.”

“The current process is paper and labor intensive,” hecontinued. “We have multiple friction points with high processingcosts and limited automation. Distributed ledger technology bringssome much-needed innovation into our industry.”

James Wallis, vice president of blockchain markets andengagements for IBM, said in the statement that using a distributedledger on the Hyperledger Fabric “has the potential to transformthe crude oil industry by creating consistency in trade finance andby digitizing transactions and information sharing. Creating thisecosystem for the commodities market working with two world leadersin this industry will help create an entirely new approach tomanaging the global commodities trade."

Earlier this month, ActiveAllocator, a fintech company thatfocuses on allocations of traditional, illiquid and alternativeinvestments within portfolios, introduced mapping technology thatinstantly categorizes over 4 million securities to their assetsubclasses.

The propriety mapping tool is the work of two years of research,according to a statement,

“While conventional portfolio analysis tools typically coverjust a few thousand stocks and funds, this is but a small portionof the millions of financial instruments in the investableuniverse,” according to Brian Jones, cofounder of ActiveAllocator.“Our comprehensive approach not only overcomes these limitations ofscope, but also enables significant business and operationalbenefits to not only asset allocation but also to tradenegotiation, execution, settlement and clearing processes.”