Santander to Offer Loans Backed by Agricultural Commodity Tokens

Santander is developing the possibility of offering loans backed by tokens that are collateralized in agricultural products. The bank has partnered with Agrotoken, a company that launched a series of agricultural commodity tokens already being used in agriculture-related markets to make transactions. A pilot test has been conducted to validate the system used to produce these loans.

The Spanish multinational bank Santander has announced it is developing a system to offer loans that would be backed by commodity tokens. The initiative has been launched in partnership with Agrotoken, an Argentinian startup that developed a group of grain-backed tokens allowing producers to transact with their commodities.

According to a press release by Santander Argentina, a test run of the system has already been conducted, and Argentinian producers validated the software product and its state. Santander reports this is the first product of its kind, linking financial products with agricultural tokens, including blockchain services to facilitate transactions.

Fernando Bautista, head of agrobusiness at Santander Argentina, stated:

This is the first time that a service platform uses blockchain technology and crypto assets to expand the agricultural credit market and release the business potential of the producer.

The tokens created by Agrotoken are three: SOYA, CORA, and WHEA. Each one of these tokens is backed by a ton of grain (corn, soy, or wheat) that the producer delivered to a grain collector. The token is then issued by a decentralized system that uses “Proof of Grain Reserve” to validate the existence of the grain for each transaction.

Santander believes this token system will facilitate the creation of a whole new business, where agricultural producers will be able to get financing in a straightforward way, using their own products as collateral. Fintech is one of the hottest fields for Santander in Argentina, and the bank announced it will invest $225 million in the country to modernize its software and hardware infrastructure to offer new products to its customers. This is according to Ana Botin, president of Santander.

The Agrotoken assets have been used in several operations since 2021, helping producers to acquire machinery and other materials in a simplified fashion. Santander’s interest in crypto is not new, as the bank is already prepared to offer a cryptocurrency ETF product in Spain.

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