Former senior Citi executive will lead expansion of the foundation to enable financial institutions to realize significant business benefits from blockchain
The Provenance Blockchain Foundation today announced that Morgan McKenney has joined the organization as its CEO. In this role, McKenney will partner with a range of financial institutions, fintechs, developers, and industry players to lead the growth and adoption of the Provenance Blockchain, an open source, public blockchain designed specifically for the financial services industry. The Provenance Blockchain Foundation is dedicated to supporting the development of decentralized financial services applications to deliver significant business benefits for its participants.
A leader in payments innovation and digital transformation globally, McKenney has spent her career focused on innovation for institutional and consumer clients. Having most recently served as Special Advisor at Centre, a consortium to promote trusted use of fiat-backed stablecoins, and as a Bain Expert Advisor in the digital assets space, McKenney is uniquely positioned to helm the rapidly growing blockchain that is increasingly relied upon by financial institutions.
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“The Provenance Blockchain has successfully demonstrated the ability to deliver material business benefits to participating financial institutions and their customers at scale,” said McKenney. “I am excited to advance the work underway and to deepen the innovation ecosystem of financial institutions, fintechs, developers, and other industry leaders building on and leveraging Provenance Blockchain to make financial services significantly more efficient, with more real-time capabilities and reduced counterparty risk.”
McKenney spent nearly twenty years at Citi in a range of senior executive operating roles globally, most recently as Chief Operating Officer for Global Consumer Banking. With a career leading large payments businesses in the institutional business globally in Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, McKenney partnered with banks, corporates, and governments to help them operate their business and enable real-time commerce. McKenney also successfully implemented two blockchain projects with NASDAQ and with Alibaba and Ant Financial, and managed Citi’s innovation lab in Singapore.
The Provenance Blockchain was built specifically for financial services and provides the first real opportunity to disrupt the space, significantly reducing costs for consumers and introducing new revenue opportunities for industry. Since its inception, the Provenance Blockchain ecosystem has grown to more than 50 financial institutions transacting on the blockchain and more than $3 billion in completed financial transactions. Earlier this year, several U.S. financial institutions launched the USDF Consortium to provide a bank minted tokenized deposit and 24x7x365 payment rail, USDF, on the Provenance Blockchain.
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“With the rapid adoption of the Provenance Blockchain, and the opportunities ahead for this technology to fundamentally transform how financial services works and drive massive reallocation in industry market capitalization, I can’t think of a better leader for Provenance than Morgan McKenney,” said Mike Cagney, CEO of Figure. “Morgan’s experience in traditional finance, spearheading innovative teams, and operating in new markets will be key to growing the ecosystem and unlocking the enormous value the Provenance Blockchain Foundation has to offer.”
Figure Technologies harnesses the Provenance Blockchain across its product lines, including lending, capital markets, asset management, investment services, banking, and payments. Figure was the first to originate, warehouse, and securitize mortgages on the blockchain, demonstrating over 100 bps of efficiency in its first securitization in 2020. Last year, Figure pioneered a 24 hour secondary market for private company stock with trades settled in USDF.
“The Provenance Blockchain was designed to meet the specific needs of financial services providers, allowing them to meet evolving customer demands and adapt to the rapid pace of digitization, while meaningfully reducing cost and risk,” said Bea Ordonez, Chief Innovation Officer for Webster Bank and USDF Consortium board member. “The public nature of the blockchain, and the associated infrastructure, allows for the rapid deployment of solutions and as such can advance the democratization of financial services, driving value to a diverse range of clients. I am thrilled that Morgan has been selected to lead the Provenance Foundation. As one of a few female leaders in this space, she is taking on an important role and has the opportunity to drive real transformation in the financial services industry. I look forward to working with her.”
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