Fluent In Credit Insurance, With Blockchain

Risk has been around at least as long as transactions have been around. How to manage for risk has been a question that has bedeviled firms across the ages.

One way to mitigate risk, of course, comes with insurance — and, more specifically, covering the possibility that the other side of a transaction will not deliver on its financial promises.

To that end, Fluent, which operates an open account trade platform online using distributed ledger technology (through blockchain), has linked up with Euler Hermes, which offers trade credit insurance. Under the terms of their partnership, Fluent is using Euler Hermes’ API-based credit offerings, with an eye on credit insurance covering individual transactions. The two firms are also, they said, exploring using blockchain to help change the way such transactions are financed across the supply chain.

The main Euler Hermes tool being utilized by Fluent is the Single Invoice Cover, in which insurance covers the possibility of non-invoice payment. Fluent Cofounder and Chief Marketing Officer Casey Lawlor told PYMNTS the insurance quote comes in real time and can be purchased by bank and nonbank enterprises alike. That invoice insurance tool is, in turn, being offered through the Fluent Trade Asset Marketplace, which extends across banks and lenders.

Lawlor said the firm’s platform helps to move past the silo mentality that has been the hallmark of many firms across industries. The distributed ledger technology means that accounts and reporting of transactions have no possibility “of being tampered with after the fact” and that there are two-way matches in place across invoices and orders.

In addition, he said, activity in supply chain transactions is standardized. That testing of the Fluent Trade Asset Marketplace is now in pilot phase, said the executive.