Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has hired a former executive of the cryptocurrency finance company Circle.
Marieke Flament, who previously worked as Circle’s European CEO, will join RBS as executive director of Mettle, her digital service for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Reportedly, Mettle has been operational since November 2018, and RBS plans to launch a stand-alone version of the service in August. Flament commented with Mettle on the potential for financial disruption in the SME sector:
“There is a great opportunity for disruption in the digital banking of SMEs. The knowledge and feedback obtained during the pilot stage has shown that we are in a very strong position to capitalize on this opportunity through Mettle”.
As reported by Cointelegraph, Royal Bank of Scotland joined in April a test program that used blockchain technology to streamline real estate payments. The test allegedly used a tool from the startup Instant Property Network, based on the open source platform Corda of R3, to reduce costs and offer more transparency in property acquisitions.
Executive John Stecher of Barclays, another major bank that participated in the test, commented on the current non-optimized process of buying a home, saying:
“When a person wants to buy a house, the process encompasses a wide variety of interactions with different businesses and government entities that can be cumbersome and time consuming”.
Also published on Medium.