“Imagine a world...”

Daniel Andemeskel, Head of Innovation Management at Universal-Investment Group and Founder and Managing Director of UI Enlyte

“Imagine a world where you can invest as if you were buying books online – simple, secure, efficient,” begins Daniel Andemeskel, Head of Innovation Management at Universal-Investment Group and Founder and Managing Director of UI Enlyte, an end-to-end digital asset investment platform.

In today’s traditional investment management industry this vision might sound utopian, with traditional methods of investing far from this frictionless idea of investing with a few clicks online. As Andemeskel elaborates, the current financial services industry struggles from “siloed” or segregated processes, resulting in prolonged, paper-heavy financial activities. These siloed services lead to further complications, such as burdensome processes for clients, investment opportunities that don’t cater to their needs, or no access to non-fungible asset classes to invest in.

Other industries have seen or are starting to see this digital transformation, and there is no reason for the financial service industry not to follow suit. Thanks to recent innovative technologies such as blockchain, big data and artificial intelligence, creating this digital investment future is becoming a reality.

Blockchain has been one of the biggest contributing factors to the financial industry’s ongoing innovation. It is the underlying technology behind digital assets including cryptocurrencies, NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and tokenised financial assets. It provides a decentralised infrastructure to issue and distribute digital assets while reducing the silo-based processes of the conventional world. Financial services and their clients benefit from the operational efficiency of a digital, blockchain-based infrastructure. The benefits of this new technology allow platform providers such as UI Enlyte to offer clients a more simple, secure and efficient investment process.

In recent years the adoption rate and market size of the digital assets market has been increasing rapidly. The major digital asset group, cryptocurrencies, reached a value of €2.8 trillion in early November 2021. With a cumulative average growth rate of over 155 per cent in the past four years, cryptocurrencies and digital assets are proving to be the fastest-growing asset in history. It is the capabilities that accompany this technology that drives this tremendous growth and look to make a frictionless investment industry.

In recent years the adoption rate and market size of the digital assets market has been increasing rapidly. The major digital asset group, cryptocurrencies, reached a value of €2.8 trillion in early November 2021. With a cumulative average growth rate of over 155 per cent in the past four years, cryptocurrencies and digital assets are proving to be the fastest-growing asset in history. It is the capabilities that accompany this technology that drives this tremendous growth and look to make a frictionless investment industry.

With more than €700 billion in assets under its administration, Universal-Investment is one of the leading European fund service platforms and Super ManCos. The launch of an investment platform for digital assets supports UI Group’s position as an innovator in the fund service industry, highlighting the potential of investing with the end-to-end digital asset investment platform UI Enlyte. UI Enlyte is a regulation-compliant institutional-grade digital asset investment platform that covers the entire investment process of digital assets fully digitally on one platform – from the onboarding of clients and the issuance of digital assets to administration and reporting. With this one-stop-shop solution, fund promotors, asset managers and investors can grow their business by leveraging the benefits of blockchain technology, whether end-to-end or as a white-label solution. UI Enlyte’s service offering includes security token offerings (STOs), a crypto custody solution building up to 20 per cent crypto exposure in traditional §284 funds as well as tokenised fund shares. Having received the ISO 27001 certificate earlier this year, UI Enlyte provides all offerings with market-leading certified security.

As anything with value can be tokenised, or digitised and put on the blockchain, Enlyte is able to offer greater diversification to clients and investors. As soon as the regulatory environment allows, “Enlyte’s midterm goal is to create digital funds consisting of numerous digital assets, instead of having only one single investment into one kind of asset choice,” said Andemeskel.

Further advantages give clients and investors exposure into transparent ESG assets, creating a mindful investment journey. Andemeskel thinks this will go even further: “a more connected and inclusive world where a farmer somewhere in South Asia, Africa or South America could offer their products directly by issuing their investment, or their crops and their products, on the blockchain and at the other side of the world, everyone can invest In them directly.”

From the blockchain’s capabilities and these ideas, platforms such as UI Enlyte make the investment journey as easy as buying a book online – simple, secure and efficient.