9th Gear is the first and only company to offer a lending capability through patent-pending, scalable technology on a private permissioned blockchain, enabling same day trading and settlement of FX transactions.

Named the Overall Most Innovative solution by Barlow Research Associates as part of the 2019 Monarch Innovation Awards, 9thGear’s proprietary approach eliminates delivery risk, redefines and reduces credit risk, and provides greater transparency with lower back-office cost and without the use of cryptocurrencies. View a short video on how 9th Gear is reimagining the $5.1 trillion daily FX market.

The institutional FX market, considered the lifeblood of the global economy, is the largest and most liquid financial market in the world. While FX trading has increased more than 60 percent since 2007, and now trades more than $5 trillion per day, the transaction process is still rife with time zone challenges, manual processes and risk. To address these issues, 9th Gear leverages smart contracts and distributed ledger capabilities to enable multi-party trades in minutes using confirmed funds. 9th Gear also enables more parties to take part in FX transactions through its industry-first approach to FX transactions: fund first then trade, rather than the standard practice of trade then fund, which typically takes 48 hours and leaves both parties vulnerable to risk. Banks further benefit from the 9th Gear marketplace by significantly lowering their back-office costs by at least 20 percent through the elimination of manual processes.

“Over the last decade we have witnessed significant disruption in the financial industry, yet the Forex market remains largely unchanged. In our on-demand, highly adaptive and digital-first economy, two-day trades are no longer practical,” said Maryanne Morrow, founder and CEO of 9th Gear. “Using blockchain capabilities without cryptocurrencies, unlocks new opportunities for a wider crop of institutional lenders, including insurance companies, asset managers and corporate balance sheet lenders, and does so with greater transparency, speed, decreased risk and lower costs. 9th Gear truly re-imagines the way the world moves trillions of dollars every day.”

9th Gear is the only company changing the fundamental process of the FX trade, subsequently eliminating delivery risk, reducing credit risk, decreasing capital requirements and ensuring closer adherence to global regulatory reform initiatives including the U.S. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive/Regulation (MiFID II) and the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). 9th Gear was built from the ground up for the specific needs of the institutional financial market, capable of managing gross trading volumes while remaining secure and transparent for all parties.

“Based on a lifetime of foreign exchange (FX) and more recently blockchain, 9th Gear is re-imagining how FX is executed, minimizing risk, dramatically reducing back office costs and accelerating the transaction from 2 days to minutes.” said Phil Harris, former Head of EBS Market.

9th Gear works with global and regional banking institutions, insurance companies, asset managers, corporate treasurers, wealth managers and anyone responsible for trading or lending in the FX market. The company only manages transactions in native FIAT currency and is not affiliated with any specific financial institution or enterprise.