The  center of excellence Banking and Finance at the University of Applied Sciences St. Gallen starts in April 2020 in cooperation with Kaiser Odermatt & Partner and other well-known practice partners one of the Swiss Agency for Innovation Promotion (Innosuisse) co-funded research project under the Title «Independent Evaluation Framework for security tokens». 

The  The aim of this research project is to Ttransparency and comparability of security tokens zu schaffen. Next to one drind necessary standardization in the field of security tokens, a comprehensive and broadly supported certification process be developed.  

This certification serves both companies that finance themselves through the issue of security tokens and banks that maintain business relationships with the issuers as well as private and institutional investors. As part of a broad-based study, the different needs of all stakeholder groups (Eg Banks, stock exchanges, regulators, lawyers and Note, technology companies, associations, issuers, investors and platform providers) comprehensively collected in order to build on this a recognized by the market Standardization and certification for security tokens to develop. 

Security tokens are clearly distinguishable of utility tokens or ICOs as well as cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Co., which caused a real hype in 2017. Mainly usage tokens (subcategory of ICOs) were issued, which allowed buyers to use a specific application or platform. Meanwhile, there has been a move away from utility tokens towards security tokens. STOs (Security Tokens offerings) questions a regulated version of funding. investors invest here into digital assets on a Blockchain be recorded decentrally and forgery-proof. The blockchain technology therefore offers the possibility to «tokenize» and make it tradable. For SMEs in particular, this digital form of financing could enable simplified and more efficient access to the capital markets in the future. From an investor perspective, security tokens offer a new or expanded one Access to various asset classes. 

The resulting from the research project standardization and certification are intended to help create transparency and trust in order to further advance the promising market for security tokens. 

Kaiser Odermatt & Partner is part of this research team, which consists of several practice partners with well-founded experience and technical expertise in the field of blockchain and security tokens.

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