IKEA Iceland has taken part in a commercial transaction on ethereum, using smart contracts and licensed e-money to facilitate the settlement of an order from Nordic Store, a local retailer.
On October 3 (Tuesday), it has been reported that the transaction was carried out on a platform provided by Tradeshift, a supply chain management firm and used “programmable digital cash” from ConsenSys-backed Monerium. Specifically, Nordic Store bought goods from IKEA and settled an e-invoice using Monerium’s tokenized Icelandic krona.
However, Monerium and Tradeshift suggested that the “world’s first” transaction shows that “government-regulated, programmable e-money is ready for mainstream markets.”
It has been reported in June that Reykjavik-based Monerium was licensed by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Iceland (FME) as its first Electronic Money Institution, making the startup the first to have regulatory approval to provide fiat payment services over blockchain systems across the European Economic Area.
The Electronic Money Institution rules were set up originally for prepaid debit cards by the European Union after the 2008 financial crisis.
Gert Sylvest, the Co-founder of Tradeshift said:
“With a ‘smart invoice’ we can issue tokens that represent the future cash flow down to each dollar on the invoice. Whoever holds tokens will get paid upon due date, which makes smart invoices ideal to use for financial-services apps.” Gert Sylvest
<img src="https://www.cryptonewspoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Gert_Sylvest.56f1b28f37eee.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-2501 lazyload" width="455" height="321" />
Gert Sylvest, Co-founder of Tradeshift
Likewise, Tradeshift also created the “smart invoice” for the transaction, which was notably backed by Goldman Sachs in a $250 million Series E funding round on May. The round valued the firm at at $1.1 billion and marked a deeper move into the blockchain industry by the firm.
Thus, Stefan Arnason, the CFO of IKEA Iceland stated:
“A programmable financial supply chain, where trading partners can connect information flows to money flows through smart contracts, will transform how suppliers and customers interact.” Stefan Arnason
Source: Coindesk