Cred Opens Crypto Corporate Lending Platform To Developers

Cryptocurrency-backed lending platform Cred is opening up its technology to third-party developers, the company has announced.

In a press release on Tuesday (Dec. 11), Cred revealed the rollout of its developer platform CredX (not to be confused with the new credit card accounts payable solution recently launched by Finexio). The Crypto-Lending-as-a-Service (CLaaS) solution enables other crypto companies — including exchanges, crypto wallets or mining services  to integrate Cred’s lending functionality into their own solutions. Its set of application program interfaces (APIs) enable businesses to use crypto as collateral to access corporate financing products.

In a statement, Co-founder of Cred and Universal Protocol Dan Schatt said the technology can be particularly applicable to the corporate finance fields.

“Lending and earning crypto are hard businesses to get right, particularly in a bear market,” he said. “A crypto custodian, wallet, merchant or exchange business can now offer their customers compelling credit and treasury management features built directly into their own apps, powered by Cred.”

Schatt continued, “Businesses can choose to use their own balance sheets, or leverage Cred’s to provide credit and earning services to generate revenue, customer retention, cost saves and receive an instant settlement. Companies can also place their [bitcoin (BTC)] with Cred to earn substantial interest. We look forward to continually adding new functionality that will appeal to new and existing customers of crypto. Even traditional financial institutions can benefit.”

Scott Thompson, former president of PayPal, provided a statement emphasizing Cred’s APIs for the cryptocurrency market, “something that venerable companies such as PayPal and Stripe are not providing today,” he said. “The future of financial services require[s] a more open and transparency approach to FinTech, and Cred’s former PayPal team is well-positioned to meet a market need.”

Other companies have launched their own third-party development platforms, aimed at encouraging innovators to experiment and build with blockchain technology.

Amazon Web Services launched its blockchain templates for developers earlier this year, while Mastercard developed several blockchain APIs in 2016 to promote the exploration of blockchain in areas like payments and smart contracts.