"Synch is creative and comes up with innovative ideas"

The basis for what would become the company Centiglobe was born out of a research project on Bitcoin, by researchers from KTH. The company was founded in 2017 by Henrik Gradin. In the spring of 2021 Petter Sandgren, formerly at SEB, became CEO of the company.

Petter Sandgren talks about the project he describes as the embryo of Centiglobe:

“The founder, Henrik Gradin, was a researcher at KTH, but has also been successful as an entrepreneur. During the project, they looked at all the problems associated with bitcoin, from speed to problems with energy consumption, and built their own, private blockchain.”

There has been a strong focus on enabling real-time payments within a country's borders. An example of this is Swish. But Centiglobe's vision is to also enable direct payments internationally, and the company targets B2B customers.

“Making a foreign payment today is more complicated than it needs to be. When you transfer money from a Swedish bank to a foreign bank, for example, it is not uncommon for two American banks to act as correspondent banks,” describes Petter Sandgren. “The trust between the various banks is lacking, which means that no party goes ahead with their part until they themselves have received the money. The system is both costly and slow.”

Centiglobe's platform is DLT-based and runs on Centiglobe's own private blockchain. The system creates credibility between the parties and eliminates the need for intermediaries. Transfers that may normally take several days to complete, can instead be made in real-time, and thus become much more cost-effective.

Petter Sandgren describes the role of the blockchain. 

“As a blockchain is a decentralized model, more people have access to information, the information is constant, and every decision made is preserved. This creates transparency. With the help of a blockchain, parties lacking conviction in each other are provided with a system designed to enhance trust in each other to a greater extent.”

If, for example, you make a transfer between two Swedish banks through a platform such as Swish, the transfer is visible directly in the recipient's account - but it is the recipient's bank that uses its own liquidity to credit the recipient's account, as the banks trust each other.

“But it would not happen if it was a Thai bank and a Swedish bank, for example. But thanks to technology, banks are able to develop trust in each other, which makes it possible to make this type of peer-to-peer payment, even internationally. That is what Centiglobe wants to achieve. The blockchain means that the parties, which otherwise would not have an abundance of trust in each other, gain a greater sense of security,” Petter Sandgren explains.

Centiglobe works together with the law firm, Synch.

“They are proficient in technology and work a lot in this field, so it was a natural choice to work with them. Synch has helped us structure the legalities of how the various parties working with our technology should cooperate. Synch has helped us develop what form the collaboration should take, and what obligations and rights the parties should have towards each other,” says Petter Sandgren.

Peter Sandgren describes Synch as, “Creative, as much of their work with Centiglobe was starting from scratch. Initially, there was only a rough idea about what we wanted to achieve.

They developed auspicious and innovative ideas. This agreement, which concerns payment platforms based on a blockchain, is probably the first of its kind to have been made in Sweden.” 

“Innovative technical solutions require cutting-edge advisors who are not afraid to take on tasks that have never been done before. There, we really appreciate Synch's ability,” concludes Peter Sandgren.