How The Startup Clear Is Employing Blockchain In Clearing, Settlement

Blockchain and smart contracts will revolutionize the way enterprises do business.

That’s according to Eran Haggaig, the executive chairman of Clear, a blockchain-based clearing and settlement solution. Haggaig — an industry veteran who spent a lifetime working in technology and engineering, developing solutions for some of the biggest institutions like Eurex — told Benzinga he sees blockchain adoption growing strongly.

“During the previous hype in 2017, my co-founder and I looked at what we could do to really change the way businesses and enterprises work,” Haggaig said in a discussion on the rise of DeFi, a way to enable smart and immediate algorithmic-based loans.

“There is a way to take this technology and to change the way businesses and enterprises contract, and manage their contracts, [automating] reconciliation and settlement, enforcement.”

The Core Product: In the simplest way, Clear is a builder of blockchain-based settlement and clearing networks, reducing costs, inefficiencies and fraud while maintaining the secrecy of contracts and trade details.

“The approach we took is to be the tool, to the enterprise, that can be used both as an infrastructure product, but also to give full end-to-end application solutions,” Haggaig said.

Some of the company’s most impactful work involves automated workflows for the telecommunications industry, which he said is too advanced for traditional back-office interactions.

“With the telcos, there’s so many relationships and there is no way that they could handle this with the existing, super-old fashioned financial back-office,” the exec said. “It won’t work if they won’t upgrade their entire financial ecosystem.”

Proof of concept is found in Clear’s work helping facilitate payments between worldwide telcos.

“We took a very strong approach toward this 5G evolution and decided that we need to get really wide coverage,” Haggaig said.

“We went to work with the biggest groups in the world — Vodafone, Tele-Fonika and Deutsche Telekom — settling all their roaming agreements, for example.”

With the help of Clear, major telcos have been able to automate, expand and streamline their operations in a way that is easily auditable and cryptographically secure. 

“What differentiates us is that we have been able to use this technology on concrete business challenges,” Haggaig said, adding that organizations are now prepared “for the next challenge they’re going to have.”

Recent Developments: Clear has formed a partnership with Nokia Corporation NOK, a multinational telecommunications, information technology and consumer electronics company.

The two will collaborate as part of Nokia’s WaveHub ecosystem initiative to improve telecommunications automation and service delivery.

“This partnership with Nokia, a longstanding leader in the development and deployment of optical networking solutions, is a significant milestone in Clear’s focus on transforming B2B trade within the industry,” Haggiag said in a statement on the development.

“By providing an ecosystem for more efficient, transparent clearing and settlement processes through bespoke blockchain-based solutions, telecom players will be better supported to bring users the best experience when it comes to exciting new innovations, such as 5G networks.”

The partnership is a boon for Clear, as it will help in procuring vendors in search of financial and contracting solutions.

“We plan to keep fostering these types of relationships,” Haggaig said. 

The Innovation Outlook: Aside from new partnerships with organizations like TOMIA and Nokia, Clear is looking to amp up innovation and scalability.

Going forward, Clear will also capitalize on strong growth in services like video conferencing, drone surveillance and other ecosystems that could use automatic settlement services and exposure to decentralized marketplaces, Haggaig said. 

“What we care about is to grow this ecosystem, and to give the world a fully connected experience where all the companies work together seamlessly in managing their financials and settlements in an automated way, as well as making partnerships better.”

To learn more about Clear, click here.