Azimut and Sygnum Bank to tokenize portfolio of loans to Italian SMEs

By Megha Bhattacharya

Europe-based independent asset manager Azimut has partnered with Sygnum Bank to tokenize its first portfolio of loans to Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The Token, issued through a Security Token Offering (“STO”) with ID identification AZIM, is the digital securitization of a financial asset available to invest in alternative credit. Azimut stated that it is tokenizing a € 5 million portfolio of loans to Italian SMEs that will be offered to its private clients and other Azimut funds for greater portfolio diversification. This will be followed by other larger portfolios.

“Access to finance is a constraint to the growth of Mid Cap companies, and this is a focus of Azimut’s Synthetic Bank (Banca Sintetica)[2] project, which aims to provide EUR 1.2 billion of financing to Italian SMEs over the next four years”, said Giorgio Medda, Co-CEO of Azimut Group. “Our partnership with Sygnum in the area of tokenization will enable us to leverage the power of distributed ledger technology (DLT) to increase the efficiency and transparency of the Synthetic Bank”, he added.

Recently, Sygnum announced that it has received FINMA regulatory approval for its digital asset trading facility. The digital asset trading facility is a major part of the Bank’s end-to-end tokenization offering, a regulated solution that covers the complete life-cycle of a security – from primary issuance, settlement, custody, and now, secondary trading.

Mathias Imbach, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Sygnum Bank said, “There is strong appetite for the investment opportunities that tokenization opens up to investors, which will support the building of more holistic, diversified and future-ready investment portfolios. We are proud to be working with Azimut, one of the innovative first movers in this space.”