- UK-Based blockchain insurance startup Acre bags $6.5 million from Aviva and SBG
- Acre aims to streamline the mortgage and insurance industry
UK’s blockchain-based mortgage and insurance startup Acre has bagged close to $6.5 million from British insurance giant Aviva and financial services firm Sesame Bankhall Group (SBG), reports Finextra, April 4, 2019.
What is Acre?
Insurance and mortgage-related businesses typically involve a lot of paperwork and exchange of information to complete a single deal. Further, despite the increasing popularity of direct-to-business strategies, brokers still account for nearly three-quarters of insurances and mortgages deals in the UK.
In a bid to streamline the operations in this noisy industry plagued with unnecessary paperwork, Acre has developed a blockchain-powered platform to help brokers retain their position by matching the speed and end-user experience of market disruptors. This, in turn, also vastly improves customers’ experience.
With the help of blockchain technology, the startup brings all the pieces of the mortgage advice process into one immutable “record of the transaction,” thus providing brokers with ample control and oversight over the business proceedings.
Moreover, with the availability of all pertinent data in one single unchangeable record of the transaction, consumers can enjoy faster processing of their application.
Justus Brown, CEO, Acre, said:
“Buying a house is one of the biggest financial transactions a person can make, yet the process is slow, opaque and fragmented, which is increasingly out of step with consumer expectations.”
Adding,
“We’re changing this – levelling the playing field for brokers using innovative tech, while putting an informed consumer at the centre of the mortgage process.”
Details of the Deal
As part of the deal, SBG Brokers, the mortgage brokerage offshoot of SBG will now have access to Acre’s blockchain-based mortgage protection and general insurance platform. Notably, SBG has more than 11,000 mortgage and insurance brokers across the UK.
John Cowan, the executive chairman at SBG, said that the decision to ink an exclusive deal with Acre was taken after undertaking a thorough 12-month review of the mortgage and insurance industry and identifying the new competitive threats in the ecosystem.
Acre claims that with the newly inked deal with SBG, it has now become one of the largest blockchain-based mortgage brokerage platforms in the UK.
Increasing use in the Loan and Mortgage Space
Blockchain technology has, in recent times, witnessed an increasing use in issuing loans and mortgages.
In August 2018, how the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) successfully issued a $300,000 loan using distributed ledger technology.
On a more recent note, on February 1, 2019, reports emerged stating that venture capital firm Accel India had invested $1 million in startup StreamSource, a blockchain-based marketplace for unsecured personal loans.
