PRESS RELEASE: State of Arizona selects Sweetbridge for Financial Technology Sandbox

Sweetbridge is the first tokenized, asset-backed lending platform to be approved in the United States

05.11.18: The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has announced it has accepted Sweetbridge as one of the first three projects into its newly developed Financial Technology Sandbox.

The Arizona FinTech Sandbox is the first financial technology testing sandbox in the US. It is modeled after the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s sandbox, and the concept was endorsed by the U.S. Treasury in its FinTech Report.

Sweetbridge entered the Sandbox with a very particular use case for its protocols: token-based asset lending on vehicles. Sweetbridge can now offer blockchain loans backed by real assets, starting with car titles in Arizona. The organisation selected these loans because it felt it was an underserved industry, filled with predatory practices, with average APRs in the triple digits.

Through the Sandbox, up to 10,000 Arizonans will be able to take out loans on their car titles at estimated rates of 20% APR or less, made possible by Sweetbridge protocols and blockchain technology.

Scott Nelson, CEO & founder of Sweetbridge, said, “We are thrilled to participate in the first FinTech sandbox program in the United States, and are thankful to the State of Arizona, Attorney General Mark Brnovich, and Rep. Jeff Weninger for their leadership in bringing this program to the State of Arizona.

At Sweetbridge, we are transforming how lending is done. We believe this to be the first regulatory approval for tokenization of titled assets for lending anywhere in the world, and we started in one of the most difficult regulatory environments, the United States. Through the visionary leadership in the State of Arizona, we will lower the cost of lending against all forms of assets, here and across the globe. There is a better way to offer people liquidity in their assets, and we can demonstrate that value through this Arizona pilot project.”

Will Munsil, Sweetbridge’s Head of Legal Projects, said of the project, “We believe it’s possible for tokenized, asset-backed lending to lead to a lower-cost, more accessible kind of capital for many families in Arizona. We think this is a great time to live in Arizona, and we’re excited to bring our transformative economic models to Arizona citizens.

“Our goal has always been real-world solutions. As our team thought about the best use case for modeling real-world asset tokenization, we quickly landed on vehicles as a starting place. In Phoenix, 91.6 percent of households have access to a vehicle, and the average household has access to 1.71 vehicles. For many families, a vehicle is the most valuable asset they own. This makes it a better place to turn for an asset-backed loan as an alternative to a credit card.

An architect of the Arizona Sandbox, Paul Watkins, who is leading the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection’s Office of Innovation, has signaled his intent to pursue a bureau or multi-agency federal sandbox. The trend toward sandboxes could allow Sweetbridge to expand tokenized projects into other states and additional offerings.

For all Arizona residents, Sweetbridge is currently recruiting for its Alpha test group for this pilot project. Contact the customer service department, support@sweetbridge.com, today to let them know you are interested.