FINRA-Licensed Broker-Dealer Welcomes Smartlands To America

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It ain’t easy moving to America these days, but Smartlands is bucking border-tightening trends with its latest announcement. The UK-based project, launched in 2017 on the Stellar (XLM) network, is setting up house across the pond, following the signing of a cooperative agreement with IIP Securities.

The US-based FINRA-licensed broker-dealer has given the rubber stamp of approval for Smartlands to do business in America with its license agreement. The move enables the platform to successfully comply with strict US regulatory requirements. With this approval, Smartlands can sell securities listed on its platform to accredited US investors.

Smartlands is a digital platform for crowdfunding investments by issuing digital shares in the form of security tokens. The company has already successfully used the Stellar network to provide liquidity to the real estate market with its blockchain-based security token issuance platform. Crypto Briefing previously reported on the company’s innovative fractional ownership solution in the UK property market.

But the platform’s capabilities extend well beyond real estate; the proprietary technology offers “fractional ownership of virtually any asset class, with a focus on high-yield investments,” according to the company.

American Securities

Now, Smartlands is expanding its outlook into the American securities market, with plans to open an office in the United States. The company will create a framework for enabling US-based companies to conduct compliant STOs. As part of its global expansion strategy, Smartlands will acquire a major share in IIP Securities in an effort to strengthen their position in the US market.

CEO Ilia Obraztsov explains the company’s efforts to expand beyond their Joint Venture program with IIP Securities, saying the cooperative effort has broadened in scope beyond the initial broker-dealer licence agreement stage. He elaborates, “Allowing US citizens to purchase securities issued on Smartlands compliantly has always been an essential part of our roadmap for global development, and we’re happy that this stage of our plan is now complete.”

The next step for the company is to explore a number of complex regulatory processes required for the creation of a compliant investment framework. Such a system would enable US-based companies to conduct STOs on the Smartlands platform, providing US-based citizens with access to investment via the platform. 

Smartlands CMO, Yaroslava Tkalich, comments on the agreement with IIP Securities, explaining it allows the company to meet the challenge of broadening and diversifying its current investor base beyond tokenized real estate ownership. “Today, working with a FINRA-licenced broker-dealer,” he explains, “we’re in a position to provide US investors with a huge array of brand new opportunities.”

Stellar (XLM) has been showing signs of life in recent weeks, demonstrating a mildly positive trend. The asset appears to finally be striving for a recovery from its steady decline since January this year. According to sentiment data from TheTIE.io, long-term sentiment has been climbing over recent months, adding to the hopes for a continued price recovery of the asset.

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