Blockchain Firm Seven Stars Cloud Signs $24 Billion Deal with China’s Largest Electric Bus Service Operator

Blockchain firm Seven Stars Cloud Group Inc. (NASDAQ: SSC) has announced in a press release today that it has formed a ‘ground-breaking’ three-year exclusive $24 billion deal with China’s National Transportation Co to issue fixed income lease financing-based products. The new partnership is directed at helping the Chinese government replace all its current transportation buses with fully electric buses by 2021.

“The market size for the mandatory replacements and upgrades to achieve fully-electric bus operations in China is estimated at 1 trillion RMB (approx. $145B),” reads the press release. “NTS is the largest full-service operator for electric buses, with sales, lease financing, a charging station network, and real-time data services including media, payments, maps, and facial recognition.”

Seven Stars Cloud will begin the new partnership by launching two financing campaigns, one in China and another directed at global markets. The Chinese financing campaign will focus on selling fixed income products in an effort to raise 60 Billion RMB (~$8.75 billion) over three years. For the global financing campaign, Seven Stars Cloud will provide both fixed income and asset digitization products in an attempt to raise $15 billion by 2021.

According to Chairman and CEO of Seven Stars Cloud Bruno Wu,

“This is a truly ground-breaking deal globally for blockchain-based fintech companies to gain such a large-scale, asset-backed, contract. It represents a new era and a paradigm shift in the way in which we view asset-based financial products; and it will serve as a window to the world on how asset value and liquidity can be unlocked by traditional industries as we take fixed income products into the digital era. By combining regulated financial infrastructure, and the market confidence in asset-based products, with AI-enhanced risk management and the dynamics of blockchain-enabled fractionalization, securitization, tokenization, and global trading of token-based offerings, we are delivering the next-generation of financial products which will be compelling for both asset-rich industries and investors alike. It’s an exciting time for SSC, and we’re extremely pleased and honored to partner with NTS on this offering.”

President of the National Transportation Capacity Co. Jihong Huang added,

“We’re delighted to enter into this deal, which is historic in terms of fixed-income asset digitization. SSC has taken traditional lease financing business offerings and rejuvenated them with today’s new technology, in which flexibility, fractionalization, and global accessibility are key. A combination of SSC’s Blockchain and AI technologies, combined with our shared mission for unlocking both liquidity and enterprise value through asset digitization, will result in a significant transformation of the entire lease financing-based fixed income market. Each of the leading ten bus manufacturers in China strongly back NTS in this initiative, and the success of this transaction with SSC will place asset-backed digital offerings firmly on the map.”

Other recent blockchain news surrounding China includes an announcement from the Shanghai Stock Exchange in partnership with China’s Insurance Management Association to launch a joint initiative aimed at improving the country’s insurance pension industry through blockchain and a new Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform being launched by Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com.