Lloyds Bank has completed the first digital promissory note transaction in the U.K., which involved a £48M land purchase.

The world is shifting from using paper for business and financial operations to leveraging the beauty of digitization. This growing digital global movement speeds up operations and provides greener solutions, reducing paper use.

The Digital Negotiable Instrument Initiative (DNI) is one of the numerous initiatives to encourage the digitization of business and financial operations.

Launched by the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (ITFA), the DNI seeks to completely digitize Promissory Notes and Bills of Exchange using distributed ledger technology (DLT). Lloyds Bank, one of IFTA’s partners on the DNI initiative, just recently completed the first digital promissory note transaction, a press release from the bank disclosed.

According to the press release, the promissory note transaction saw the purchase and sale of £48M worth of land amongst several businesses in the U.K. The transaction was carried out on August 18.

To highlight one of the numerous benefits of a digital promissory note, Lloyds Bank noted that the transaction was carried out within a day instead of a week, which is the norm with traditional promissory notes.

A promissory note is a legally signed document that dictates the terms of payments to be made by a borrower to a lender at a specified period or the lender’s demand. Large entities with reputable creditworthiness use the note to take loans.

Promissory notes have been around for a long time, and, like most ancient operations, several initiatives to digitize the document have sprung up. Notwithstanding, these initiatives have failed within the U.K. due to the specifications of the Bills of Exchange Rate, which govern promissory notes. The Act specifies that notes ought to be physical entities.

Lloyd Banks devised a means to digitize promissory notes without violating the provisions of the Bills of Exchange Act. This enabled the financial institution to complete the first-ever digital promissory note transaction the U.K. has seen.

The promissory note transaction was made possible through the utilization of Enigio’s trace: original solution. The trace: original solution can be used to digitize original documents without losing their useful properties, as it leverages blockchain technology.

Lloyd Banks highlighted the significance of the development, as it noted that digital promissory notes would help make promissory note transactions safer, more convenient, faster, and more transparent. The transaction is also a step towards digitizing more transaction bills in the broader movement to digitize the trade and industry sector.

“With this successful UK-first transaction, we have delivered an innovative digital solution that is quicker, less expensive, and more secure. The digitisation and simplification of this solution finally opens this form of payment discounting to potentially millions of small businesses, improving their ability to manage their working capital and the cashflow of their suppliers by fulfilling invoices more quickly.” Gwynne Master, Managing Director of Lending and Working Capital at Lloyds Bank, remarked.

Western Union Files Trademark Applications to Delve into Crypto, Web3, and Metaverse.

Western Union makes the first move in attempts to penetrate the crypto scene as it files applications for Web3, Crypto, and Metaverse trademark.

The cryptocurrency scene has often been compared to the advent of the world wide web in the 1990s, as adoption surged. Several top corporations have indicated an interest in penetrating the cryptocurrency scene, with others fully embracing it. American multinational financial services company Western Union is the latest to indicate interest in entering the scene.

Western Union recently filed three trademark applications in the areas of Web3, Crypto, and Metaverse, as revealed by USPTO-licensed trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis. 

Despite disclosing limited information on the development, the purposes of the trademark applications point to an intent to penetrate the crypto sector.

“WesternUnion has filed 3 trademark applications claiming plans for Financial + Banking + Insurance 

• Virtual currency exchange + transfer
• Commodity and Crypto trading + brokerage
• Issuing tokens of value

…and much more,” Kondoudis disclosed in a tweet Tuesday.

A shot revealing more details on the application confirmed Kondoudis’ report. According to the detail, Western Union filed for the trademark applications, whose serial numbers are 97641189, 97641182, and 97641176, on October 18.

Per information from the applications, Western Union is looking to acquire these trademarks for different purposes bordering on providing services in crypto, Web3, and the Metaverse sectors. They include:

• Maintenance and management of digital currency and electronic wallets.
• Digital currency exchange operations.
• Electronic commodities, cryptocurrencies, and digital assets exchange services.
• Providing an exchange for commodities, commodities derivatives, cryptocurrencies, and digital assets.
• Issuance of tokens of value.
• Insurance and insurance agency and brokerage.
• Trading commodities and commodity derivatives, cryptocurrencies, and digital assets for others.
• Providing financial brokerage services in the nature of offering, sponsoring, managing and administering commodities, commodity derivatives, cryptocurrencies, digital assets and related financial instruments.

Data from the filings exposes Western Union’s plans to offer a hybrid blend of several cryptocurrency services to the public as it prepares itself to jump on the moving train.

Western Union indicated its readiness to adopt cryptocurrencies as far back as 2018 in an official blog post addressing comments made by then-President Odilon Almeida.

Almeida highlighted the significance of cryptocurrencies in cross-country settlements and noted that Western Union is likely to benefit more from cryptocurrencies in the long run than any other startup due to the company’s profound knowledge of cross-border money transfers.

He further noted that the company is ready to consider incorporating cryptocurrency services into its offerings. “Cryptocurrency might become one more option for a way for assets to be exchanged between people and countries. If that happens, we will be ready to launch,” Almeida remarked.

Meanwhile, other money transfer services, such as PayPal, have already fully embraced cryptocurrencies, as they already provide digital asset services to the public. As The Crypto Basic, Yesterday reported, PayPal filed trademark applications to expand its cryptocurrency offerings further.

In September, Paramount filed trademarks to gain exposure to crypto and NFTs.