Viability of assets tokenization as a method of fund-raising for SBEs

Abstract

The capital offer for small and medium-sized companies plays a fundamental social and economic role in the development of Brazil, becoming even more important in times of crisis such as the one we are currently experiencing due to the Coronavirus pandemic, where companies are more financially vulnerable. On the other hand, this expands the range of opportunities, with a scenario of excellent prospects for companies to re-establish themselves with leaner and more efficient structures. Enabling access to affordable financial resources is a difficulty faced by the vast majority of Brazilian entrepreneurs. According to estimates by the National Confederation of Retailers (CNDL), one in three micro and small business owners face difficulties in obtaining credit lines. The most common obstacles are bureaucracy, excessive demands and guarantees from banks. In general, access to capital for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs is very difficult and is one of their main pains. This, coupled with uncontrolled cash flow and lack of strategic planning, is the second main cause of the closure of business activities, according to Sebrae. The solutions offered are few and basically consist of loans from large banks, requiring real guarantees that often make credit access unfeasible, in addition to extremely high interest rates. This ends up becoming a vicious cycle, where the lack of capital makes it impossible to invest in more efficient machines, equipment and systems, as well as hiring skilled and experienced professionals to assist these companies, which end up not making the best managerial decisions, thus making it difficult for them to thrive, and so the cycle perpetuates. With the advancement of Blockchain technology, the segment of Security Token Offerings (or STOs) was created, that is, the issuance of securities that will be represented by tokens on the Blockchain. These are digital assets, in compliance with the regulation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Instruction CVM No. 588, which allows companies a less bureaucratic, faster and cheaper process to raise capital and expand their operations. In addition, it promotes the democratization of investments, allowing the diversification of investors' portfolios, even providing visibility and access to international capital, which is quite attractive given the depreciation of our currency. In the face of a highly concentrated credit market, in 5 large banks, new initiatives for access to capital are beginning to emerge, through technological innovations as well as legislation. The proposed work is a technological innovation project that aims to study the best architecture and develop a financial marketplace platform, considering the functional, security and scaling aspects and technological alternatives for reducing the costs of operations and that meet the current legislation for the issuance of digital securities. In this context, technological innovation resides in the use of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) to ensure a secure operation with traceability, auditable, public and immutable. In addition, it ensures a significantly lower operational cost than the operation of physical contracts and documents through the use of smart contracts. With this project, it is expected to demonstrate the feasibility of a new standard for asset issuance in the industry, delivering reliability and transparency above current levels, coupled with a significant reduction in time and bureaucracy for access to capital, at a cost much lower than currently practiced. (AU)