Summary

Investment banking background in trading, structuring and selling derivatives, vol arb management, PnL generation, 5 years experience in Crypto.

I am currently a payment services specialist servicing crypto firms and am deeply passionate about what Ive been learning working with my clients. My background is as a former Investment Banker (Barclays, Commerz/Dresdner, Societe Generale) with over 20 years of financial markets derivatives experience in Trading and Structuring for clients. I hold a BSc degree in Maths and Philosophy, both subjects that are in essence about enquiry, hopefully underlining that I have a naturally inquisitive mindset which I think is the most important ingredient for being a successful Business Development Manager. I began trading derivatives just as computing power and Maths allowed for this new asset class to become institutionally adopted, and believe we are at a similar juncture for Institutional DeFi.

Cross border payments

Recent work has been with firms using crypto to make cross border payments. Treasury functions of large Corporates and financial institutions are interested in seeing if simple borrow/lending might be facilitated via tokens, to be used as a form of funding (offered at a discount to redeem at par, which would not require a programmable token) and therefore be seen as more adoptable by the firm's Risk Function.

RWA tokenisation

 Some of my clients are listed on Regulated Exchanges and executing asset tokenisation programmes, standing out in my opinion because they have solved for legal enforceability, thus making the NFT and its SPV investable, rather than just developing tech. A physical commodity has some value; by wrapping the commodity in Rule of Law, it becomes property, and therefore has a higher value (which can then be used as collateral to surface liquidity that can then in turn be used to earn income).

Trade Finance

Im working with a trade finance specialist who is using Blockchain to surface and verify documentation for speedier onboarding and Receivables funding. The vision is to then to use DefI liquidity pools to fund purchasers via a Fund (which would allow for real time trading of debt). This would literally blow open the closed shop that is Trade Finance where rates are typically 15-18% for what is essentially collateralized debt. There is a USD 2.5 trillion funding gap in this market that Institutional DeFi is poised to exploit.

I enjoy a natural inquisitiveness which is a good mindset to have as a BDM or anyone who wants to grow a business. I would add that having knowledge of the law, financial regs, financial maths and asset classes, RWA tokenisation, funding models in general, all of these things backed up by the staff and name of a good name and strong balance sheet, helps an enquiring mind to be able to distinguish Institutionally adoptable models. I relish the challenge.