Frequently Asked Questions

For Investors: Since RIVA Markets was developed to improve the process for private debt investors, you receive many benefits increasing your business success such as: access to a broad and growing range of global private debt deals matching to your investment strategy, a full end-to-end system covering the full investment and further servicing and asset management process, natively on-chain loan origination with on-chain tracking for full transparency along the whole lifecycle, a well prepared data basis and data room and an AI due diligence tool reducing your effort conducting due diligence and increase the due diligence quality supporting multiple languages, an integrated chat and terms negotiation functionality, automated term sheet and loan agreement contract generation or upload of own documents with digital signature, securitization and tokenization of the loan (tranches) to non-fungible or fungible tokens, multiple integrated efficient settlement methods, an on-chain investment tracking and integrated portfolio management view, a secondary market place and therewith increased secondary market liquidity.

For Borrowers: You receive access to a global pool of lenders/ private debt investors your project will be presented to on our platform,  increasing the chance of funding. Due to the streamlined process and the time-driven approach (investors must comply to certain time rules), projects also receive faster investor response and reduce the time to funding from months to potentially days.

RIVA Markets is a platform for insitutional and professional investors only, such as private credit and mortgage funds, banks, insurance, asset manager, hedge funds, endowment funds, pension funds, family office and other accredited and professional investors.
Retail Investors are currently not served.

On the lending side we’re focusing primarily on prime markets in terms of countries but also regions and cities, like Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, Benelux, Scandinavia, but also middle east projects, US or other countries with high legal, regulatory and political stability could be of interest.

On the investors side there are only limitations in terms of the securitization vehicle and local regulations regarding security tokens. However, bilateral loan agreements between a borrower and a professional investor or lending firm/ fund are mostly not regulated.

RIVA Markets is a specialized platform for private debt, starting with commercial real estate lending such as construction loans, finance/ refinance and bridge loans to real estate developers and investors.

We’re planning to extend this range to commercial asset-backed loans such as receivable finance, trade finance, corporate loans and distressed debt, as well as real estate equity. RIVA Markets originates those loans directly on-chain and offers the  securitization to ABS and MBS, as well as, tokenization of these securities.

First of all, loans and derivative products are the only financial products which can be originated directly on-chain, whereby derivatives are based on underlying assets, which are not originated on-chain. Loans always possess and intrinsic value due to its principle as an obligation to repay and its coupon or interest the borrower has to pay. And especially real estate debt or other asset backed loans provide more security and downside protection as well as constant returns.

Native on-chain origination refers to the process of initiating and managing financial transactions directly on a blockchain platform. At RIVA Markets, this means that the entire lifecycle of a loan or financial asset—from application, through underwriting, approval, issuance, and even servicing—is conducted on the blockchain. This method utilizes the inherent benefits of blockchain technology, such as transparency, security, and immutability, to enhance the efficiency and trustworthiness of the origination process. For our investors and partners, this translates into reduced operational risks, streamlined workflows, and improved compliance with regulatory standards.

Securitized assets typically refer to financial instruments created by pooling various types of debt—such as mortgages, loans, or other receivables—and selling them as consolidated securities to investors. This process allows the original debt issuers to free up capital and provides investors with new opportunities for investment. These securities typically offer regular income streams and are structured to distribute risks associated with the underlying assets. At RIVA Markets we offer the securitization of single loan tranches into a single-asset-single-borrower security for the investor of the tranche and securitization of pooled loans in case the issuer wants to issue a product for their investors.

Tokenized assets, on the other hand, involve the conversion of ownership rights in a particular asset into digital tokens on a blockchain. This process not only enhances liquidity but also democratizes access to investments, allowing smaller investors to buy shares in assets they otherwise might not afford. Tokenization brings improved transparency, easier transferability, and often lower transaction costs compared to traditional asset transfers. Since the tokenization still requires the transfer of assets to an SPV, the shares of the SPV’s are tokenized as tokenized security. At RIVA Markets, we offer tokenization of whole loans (tranches) as well as securitized pools of asset as a whole as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT’s) for single investors, fractionalization for syndications, as well as, fungible tokens for multiple investors with the same terms.

Through securitization, an investment can be transformed into a bankable investment products that adds several benefits such as most importantly tradability. But securitization is also used to seperate risk through risk tranches and it ranks. Thereby an investor can, for example, structure a senior and a junior/ or mezzanine tranche to sell these tranches to other investors to take the first loss capital for higher yield compensation.

Tokenized assets offer several advantages over traditional securitized assets, primarily due to the incorporation of blockchain technology.

Firstly, tokenization offers improved transparency and security. Every transaction involving a tokenized asset is recorded on a blockchain, providing an immutable and transparent ledger that all parties can trust. This significantly reduces the possibility of fraud and errors, while also making the asset’s history easily accessible.

Trading tokenized assets also facilitates faster and more efficient buying and selling of shares in the asset, which can happen globally without the need for traditional intermediaries.

Tokenized assets are typically associated with lower transaction and management costs compared to securitized assets. The automation of compliance, reporting, and other administrative functions via smart contracts reduces the need for manual intervention, thereby cutting down on overhead costs and enhancing the overall efficiency of asset management.

In general, tokenization allowing assets to be divided into smaller, more affordable units, making it easier for a broader range of investors to participate.

Tokenized assets have many benefits compared with traditional investment products. Those are first and foremost transparency, as all related data are stored and tracked on-chain along the lifecycle; efficiency as all processes are streamlined and settlement is performed peer-to-peer without middlemen; liquidity, as tokens can be easily exchanged through a growing number of such trading venues, which will just accelerate over the coming years as even the traditional banking sector is working on those or already operating their own marketplaces.

With RIVA Markets you’re able to transition as you want. Using RIVA Markets in general means to go fully digital and into an era of tokenized assets. We actively support our users in this transition by offering custody solution through partners for peace in mind and integrated portfolio management. However, it is not mandatory to securitize and tokenize as our system also supports digital bilateral loan agreements.

Tokens are just a technical form of representation of the asset and RIVA Markets provides you the infrastrcuture to manage as web-based platform with no adoption on organisation or IT required. The token will be safely stored with a qualified partner custodian of your choice and all transactions triggered through RIVA Markets and the custody solution.

Dealing in that way with tokenized asset might require an internal policy documenting the process, rules, restrictions and risks associate.

RIVA Markets is true market innovation leveraging blockchain and AI for more accessibility, transparency, efficiency and liquidity. The blockchain technology in particular takes a very beneficial roles and tokenized assets are seen as the future of asset management. However, we’re aware that this is a transition, since investors are often not ready yet to directly switch to tokenized asset management.

With our transition approach we actively support investors using our platform to transition the investment operations from manual to digital to tokenized. Thereby we offer our full platform capabilities with optional modules in the way that investors can select to use digital bilateral loan agreements, securitization to an asset-/mortgage-backed security (ABS/MBS) and a tokenized ABS/MBS. Loans are directly orginated on the blockchain for transparent record keeping along the lifecycle and investors can also securitise and tokenize their assets during the lifetime for easier secondary market trading.

RIVA Markets fosters the transition to tokenized asset management. But since many investors are not ready yet, the settlement of transactions on RIVA Markets works through traditional bank transactions with a trustee involved, through a securities transaction via a paying agent or directly on-chain using stablecoins and in the near future also tokenized deposits. Stablecoin transactions can be conducted using a crypto wallet converting Fiat (traditional money like Euro, Dollar, Swiss Franc, etc.) into stablecoins such as USDT, USDC, USDF or other types of stablescoins. By settling the transaction with stablecoins, those transactions are executed instantly with a simultaneus DvP (Deliver versus Payment) peer-to-peer transctions where now other parties have to be involved to arange the payment and for settlement and clearing as in traditional securities trades required.

We’re operating a growing number of joint ventures and partnerships with well-established brokers/ consultants in the local markets, which possess the local networks and market expertise needed. Many of those deals are stemming from the relationships our brokers have with developers and investors or they’re inbound deals through recommendations and publicity.
We and our partners follow a very strict approach, having developed our loan origination system in 3 phases. 1. The lead process, in which our broker first checks the project in terms of type, investment and loan volume, status, time and the borrower background and most importantly the economical calculation. Only if all initial requirements are fulfilled and the economical calculation provides enough feasible rentability, and application process will be opened. 2. The application process, is the detailed loan process in which the broker requests all documents needed and captures all the project details. 3. The underwriting process, is performed RIVA Markets internally, whereby the whole project and all data are verified and discussed with the broker, in case also directly with the borrower if needed for more complex projects. Only when all data and documents have been submitted, calculated and proofed by all sides, the project and loan tranches are being submitted and listed on RIVA Markets.

RIVA Markets is a facilitation platform solely for institutional and professional investors and therewith acts in an unregulated space. However, our loan brokerage is conducted through our local partners, who posses of the required local licenses in their specific jurisdictions. To further expand into secondary market trading we’re aiming to become regulated under the FCA an its DLT sandbox.

Our AI Due Diligence tool has been developed to cater commercial real estate lending with a predefined structure. The tool extracts data from the application data and the documents in the data room and performs a structured analysis and documentation to the property and the project, the borrower and involved parties, the project financials, credit risk assessment, legal and environment. The multi-language capability of the LLM is also able to extract data from various languages, translate the data and write the report in various languages. With the AI Due Diligence Report, investors receive a comprehensive basis to further develop their own report with limited addtional work, saving tremendous time to close deals faster with less internal efforts and costs. Our AI due diligence capabilities are constantly evoloving and we’re eager to work with investors to further improve the outputs and make them even more tailored to the investors need.

Yes, RIVA Markets provides real-time tracking capabilities that allow investors to monitor their investments directly on our platform. This feature is powered by blockchain technology, which records all transactions on an immutable ledger, ensuring that data is transparent and up-to-date. Investors can view live updates on their portfolio performance, transaction statuses, and receive notifications about significant market events or changes in their investment values. This real-time information empowers investors to make timely decisions and manage their investments more effectively.

Yes, RIVA Markets excels in creating customized investment products tailored to meet the specific needs and objectives of our clients. Our platform allows for the customization of investment structures, terms, and risk profiles to suit the unique preferences of individual investors, family offices, and institutional clients. Whether it’s varying the duration, yield, or underlying assets of an investment, our flexible platform and expert team can design bespoke solutions that optimize returns and align with strategic goals. We offer a variety of structured products, such as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) with embedded credit default swaps (CDS) and other derivatives. These products are designed to provide enhanced yield opportunities while managing risk exposure. Our platform leverages blockchain technology for seamless execution and management of these complex instruments, ensuring transparency and efficiency. Clients can work with our expert team to develop unique investment solutions, whether it involves securitization, hedging mechanisms, or bespoke asset combinations.