Fnality’s Blockchain Milestone: $136 Million Raised to Supersede SWIFT with Immediate, Secure Transactions

Fnality, a fintech company based in London that focuses on blockchain-powered wholesale payment solutions, has raised $136 million in a Series C funding round. The round was led by

, and included investments from , , KBC Group, Temasek, and Tradeweb. Previous backers such as , Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, and ING also participated. The new funding will help Fnality advance its regulated digital payments infrastructure, with plans to add U.S. dollar and euro markets once approvals are granted by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

Fnality’s system uses distributed ledger technology (DLT) to facilitate immediate, atomic settlement with digital forms of central bank money. By replacing traditional intermediaries with blockchain transactions, the platform removes both credit and settlement risks, addressing the inefficiencies of older systems like SWIFT that can delay international payments for days. The Sterling Fnality Payment System (£FnPS), developed with Banco Santander, Lloyds Banking Group, and UBS, is the world’s first regulated wholesale DLT platform.

The company is led by CEO Michelle Neal, who took the role in March 2025 after holding senior positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and BNY Mellon. Founder Rhomaios Ram acts as a strategic advisor, concentrating on product innovation and regulatory matters. Neal highlighted Fnality’s mission to connect traditional and decentralized finance, pointing out that its always-on payment infrastructure and programmable features like “earmarking” allow for instant, conditional settlements based on cryptographic verification of events such as asset transfers.

Fnality’s “earmarking” feature lets institutions allocate funds for designated uses, ensuring they are spent only for their intended purpose. This programmability introduces conditional logic to central bank digital money, supporting scalable business models and automated payment processes. This sets Fnality apart from rivals like JPMorgan’s Kinexys and Partior, which use commercial bank money, and from RippleNet or

, which operate with intermediary tokens. Fnality’s reliance on central bank-regulated rails eliminates credit risk altogether.

This funding round reflects increasing institutional trust in blockchain-based solutions for wholesale finance. Jonathan Steinberg, CEO of WisdomTree, described Fnality’s infrastructure as “an essential building block for the next generation of financial services,” emphasizing its fit with the movement toward tokenized assets and decentralized finance (DeFi). Targeting the $120 billion cross-border payments and tokenized securities markets, Fnality seeks to solve issues of liquidity and operational complexity in the sector.

Fnality’s growth plans include obtaining regulatory clearance for U.S. and euro operations, which would enable it to compete directly with established systems. Experts observe that Fnality’s emphasis on central bank money and atomic settlement tackles a major challenge in institutional finance, where delays can lock up capital and complicate liquidity management. By removing intermediaries and enabling instant transactions, Fnality’s approach has the potential to transform the efficiency of cross-border payments.