Vakt, a blockchain-based commodity post-trade platform, announced on February 13, 2019, that they have a new CEO in the person of Etienne Amic, a former executive at JP Morgan Chase.
Amid certainly has an impressive resume, having served as a director at both JPMorgan Chase and Mercuria Energy Trading S.A. Up until recently, he worked as co-founder and chairman of Vortexa, a firm that provides cargo and analytics services to the crude oil and refined products industry.
With these previous positions in mine, Amid will certainly bring a lot of expertise to his new role at Vakt.
Vakt specializes in bypassing the paperwork process by digitizing the purchase of commodities. Their business model and success were, apparently, some of the things that convinced Amid to join the team.
“I was aware of VAKT from the start, but what impressed me was the success the company has had as a creation by a consortium of traders,” Amid said.“To have such prestigious companies pulling in the same direction – many of them competitors – tells you this is something very powerful that the industry really needs.”
He went on to stress that the use of technology will significantly impact the commodities market in the near future. What is even more impressive is that for all its achievements, Vakt is only a few months old.
The Old And The New
Vakt is based in the United Kingdom and was formed in November 2018 as a joint venture with BP, Shell, and Equinor. Their platform provides post-trade services to those in the commodities industry. In the same month, Vakt released its first blockchain-based tool which focuses on the crude oil industry. The platform is based on JPMorgan’s Quorum blockchain technology and counts ABN Amro, ING, and Société Générale, as well as independent traders Gunvor, Koch Supply & Trading, and Mercuri as its users and early backers to the sum of $33 million.
While their earlier achievements have been impressive, Vakt now faces an ever-changing blockchain industry, a challenge Amid says he is excited for.
“In essence, physical trading is the negotiation of promises to deliver a commodity of a well-defined quality, at a specified location and at a given date. Often, there are terminal or pipeline operators involved, acting as de facto physical clearinghouses, and service providers such as port agents and inspection companies helping the material to move along and checking its physical characteristics. The goal of VAKT is to facilitate all these contributions seamlessly and ‘on platform’. That’s a vision I was excited to be part of and I am looking forward to the challenge.”
Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP (Ripple), and BCH Price Analysis Watch (Feb 13th)
