The State Bank of Mauritius, a subsidiary of the SBM Group, and fintech company SALT have entered into an exploratory relationship to use blockchain assets as collateral for lending services.

Founded in 2016, Secured Automated Lending Technology or ‘SALT’ is a financial technology company and creators of a blockchain-backed loan platform. Its risk mitigation software allows financial entities, like SBM, to safely participate in a new market for loans collateralized by blockchain assets.

“We are keen to explore providing banking services to this innovative company,” said K.C Li Kwong Wing, Chairman of the SBM Group. “This relationship will go a long way toward achieving our nation’s goal of becoming a hub for outstanding blockchain companies and fostering financial inclusion.”

Chairman K.C Li further noted that, “SALT's blockchain-backed loan platform can give the SBM Group a tremendous opportunity to be a leader in this new global economy by facilitating the lending against borrower’s blockchain assets. This relationship can enable the SBM to increase the scope and scale of its reach, providing an effective manner in which to participate with the world's most rapidly expanding asset classes.”

James Duchenne, Managing Partner at blockchain advisory firm Sutton Stone, established the relationship between SALT and SBM.

“Mauritius is an ideal destination for innovative blockchain start-ups with its sandbox licensing scheme that can provide regulatory clarity, in addition to considered mechanisms for Foreign Direct Crypto Investment (FDCI) and facilitation of the commercialization of blockchain ventures in Africa and India,” Duchenne said. “As SALT works its way through the Sandbox process, other innovative blockchain companies are going to consider Mauritius as a top destination for their operations centers. The SBM exploring with SALT to build the ecosystem is a perfect example of the drive to excel from Mauritius.”

Benjamin Yablon, Co-founder of SALT, is driving the initiative with the SBM.

“The relationship will provide expertise and resources to develop and drive adoption of innovative blockchain business use cases, leveraging SALT’s protocol and asset agnostic distributed ledger based architecture,” said Benjamin Yablon, Co-founder of SALT. “Developing and implementing the technology on an industrial scale is the next step. Our partnership with SBM can help financial institutions realize this potential, bringing new levels of efficiency and revenue. With forward thinking institutions like SBM as partners, SALT has the potential to provide its services to even more of the global blockchain community.”