Executive Summary 

This case study examines Mexican fintech pioneer Mifiel’s efforts to address long-standing barriers to accessing global liquidity in Latin America through its groundbreaking use of the Liquid Network, a blockchain technology based on Bitcoin.

Founded in 2015 and led by CEO Tomás Álvarez Meli, Mifiel today is a trusted partner to top global brands operating across Latin America, including Volkswagen, Volvo, Coldwell Banker and many more. The company began its blockchain journey back in 2020 in response to a credit crunch affecting Mexico’s Non-Banking Financial Institution (NBFI) sector, specifically in an effort to overcome the inherent limitations of paper-based promissory notes, the most widely-used means of accessing credit throughout Mexico and Latin America. After a detailed and rigorous evaluation of numerous popular blockchain technologies, Mifiel eventually chose the Liquid Network based on its speed, security, cost-effectiveness and auditability, a combination deemed ideally suited to the needs of modern financial institutions.  

Beginning with the issuance of Liquid-based digital promissory notes worth over $200 million in March 2023, Mifiel has streamlined transactions and expanded market access, pioneering an innovative and compliant way of accessing liquidity amid a broader global shift towards tokenized real-world assets. This initiative has not only extended a vital lifeline to NBFIs but, in turn, created more affordable liquidity opportunities for SMEs in both Mexico and other emerging markets, as well as lucrative opportunities for global lenders.

As of February 2024, Mifiel had helped a total of 30 NBFIs issue more than 25,000 tokenized promissory notes on Liquid valued in excess of USD $1 billion, with plans for further issuances worth potentially billions more over the coming years. 

This case study details the processes, challenges, and outcomes of Mifiel's approach, offering insights into its scalability and potential to drive future economic growth and financial inclusion in Mexico and beyond. Furthermore, it also sets out the Liquid Network’s wider potential to transform the global financial sector, highlighting how institutions looking to issue digital assets - and any number of financial services - can best benefit from the efficiencies and cost savings of blockchain technology. 

For further exploration of the Liquid Network's capabilities and its future potential impact on the global financial landscape, please visit http://www.liquid.net.

Background 

Mifiel’s blockchain journey began in 2020 in the midst of a severe credit crunch affecting Mexico’s Non-Banking Financial Institution (NBFI) sector and—by extension—the millions of individuals and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) dependent on it for affordable financing.  

Emerging in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the credit crunch came about primarily due to a market-wide retreat by global lenders in reaction to a series of massive defaults by NBFIs on badly-collateralized loans.  As of February 2024, the effects continue to be felt throughout Mexico, with many such lenders today simply refusing to do business in the country in the absence of sufficiently-recognized collateral, despite the enormous potential returns. With the sector as a whole suddenly unable to access financing or—at the very least—forced to seek more expensive forms of liquidity domestically, the impact has been far-reaching, particularly in relation to SMEs which, together, account for over 90% of Mexico’s economy. 

Challenge 

Historically, a primary form of collateral used by NFBIs and other companies throughout the region has always been promissory notes. In Mexico and throughout Latin America, such promissory notes are considered high-value financial assets, primarily due to the strong legal protections they afford lenders. 

In their conventional physical form, however, they have always had various limitations that make them wholly unsuited to the demands of the globalized digital economy. 

These limitations include:

• Verification Inefficiencies: Promissory notes in Mexico and elsewhere have typically required processing by hand, which is both expensive and extremely time-consuming.
• Lack of Market Accessibility: Restrictions faced by international investors in accessing physical promissory notes have limited the growth and diversification of the entire market.
• Scalability Issues: Significant challenges associated with the logistics and expense of managing, transporting and custodying them have also presented limitations in terms of the ability of traditional promissory notes to scale.

Digitizing promissory notes meanwhile had historically proven challenging because, before blockchain technology, there had never been a fail-safe way to track their ownership or to guarantee they were not being rehypothecated to multiple lenders.

The challenge was, therefore, two-fold: how to find a sufficiently fast, secure, cost-effective and scalable blockchain that would simultaneously be legally compliant  and accepted by the financial industry.

Approach 

The benefits of successfully digitizing promissory notes were clear to Mifiel from the outset, the integration of some form of blockchain solution promising to simplify the storage, verification and transfer of such notes significantly. 

What was not so clear was the exact blockchain for the job, Mifiel’s ultimate choice of the Liquid Network reflecting a deep understanding of the technology and the requirements of the market.

Initially, Mifiel explored using the ColoredCoins protocol but soon recognized its limitations in terms of scalability and regulatory compliance. This prompted an extensive evaluation of most of the publicly available blockchain technologies, with the Liquid Network emerging as the optimal choice, striking a balance between security, decentralization, regulatory risks and cost-effectiveness. Crucially, Liquid’s lack of an ICO raise and the fact that bitcoin is its native asset would prove a key factor in appealing to global financial institutions wary of the risks associated with so-called ‘altcoin’ blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana. This was an especially important consideration given the increasing levels of scrutiny from regulatory agencies such as the SEC towards blockchains that use speculative utility tokens as their native asset, with many at risk of being deemed unregistered securities. 

A significant challenge involved overcoming the market's skepticism about Bitcoin and blockchain technologies. Mifiel navigated this by highlighting Liquid as the only viable solution for international lenders interested in the lucrative Mexican market, mitigating reputational and financial risks.

In the process of tokenizing promissory notes on Liquid, each digital promissory note is uniquely linked to a specific token ID, similar to how a CUSIP or ISIN identifies a specific financial asset but with greater verifiability.While the digital promissory note itself remains stationary, the ownership of the note is represented and transferred through the movement of its associated token. This method effectively embeds each token ID within the digital promissory note, ensuring that each blockchain asset is directly connected to a legally-binding document. As a result, this creates a financial instrument that is not only secure and traceable but also facilitates easy and transparent transfer of ownership.

Currently, these tokens are endorsed peer to peer among financial institutions. They are offered to retail investors meanwhile through a process whereby a financial institution creates a trust to which they transfer the promissory notes, then issue trust titles, fractions of which are traded via the Mexican stock exchange. 

Mifiel's decision to issue the promissory notes on Liquid in particular was bolstered by its inherent advantages as a platform purpose-built for asset issuance, including:

• Enhanced Trust & Perception: Its native integration with Bitcoin, increasingly viewed as the first and only digital commodity, enhancing trust and market perception.
• Battle-Tested Codebase: Ensuring reliable uptime and network stability, Liquid is built on Elements, an open-source Bitcoin-based codebase maintained by Blockstream, one of the world’s leading Bitcoin infrastructure companies.
• High-Speed Transactions: With deterministic block times of just one minute versus Bitcoin's average of 10, Liquid ensures faster settlement times over the latter. It is also capable of processing between 24,000 and 36,000 transactions per hour, making it more than capable of responding to the needs of modern financial institutions. Liquid’s federated governance model also gives it more flexibility to scale in the future if needed.
• Financial Privacy and Auditability: Liquid's design accommodates both investor data privacy with its Confidential Transactions protocol and auditing capabilities where required.
• Optimized Security & User Experience: Acclaimed for its robust security framework, the UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) model employed by Liquid is a cornerstone of Bitcoin’s design. The model tracks each transaction output separately, ensuring a high level of transparency and traceability in financial operations. This makes it particularly effective in preventing double-spending and maintaining the integrity of the transaction ledger. Its ability to process parallel transactions meanwhile enhances the network’s scalability and speed.
• Relatability to Legacy Financial System: With its parallels to the legacy financial system, Liquid’s federated consensus and security model makes it intuitive to seasoned finance professionals.
• Equitable Access: Liquid's peg to Bitcoin, having avoided any pre-mine or ICO, promotes fair and equal access for all users.

Results

Mifiel's decision to digitize promissory notes on the Liquid Network in March 2023 has achieved remarkable outcomes in a short span, marking a significant breakthrough in financial innovation. The initiative's success is particularly evident in a few key metrics:

• Impressive Transaction Volume: Over 25,000 issuances have been facilitated to date, totaling over US $1 billion, reflecting strong market adoption and highlighting the model’s future potential.
• Global Financial Engagement: Buoyed by this initial success, Mifiel is now in discussions with a growing number of finance-related entities ranging from consumer finance to invoice factoring companies, as well as major global financial institutions in Mexico and beyond.
• Industry Recognition: Mifiel's pioneering role in modernizing financial practices in emerging markets has been widely recognized, signifying a shift towards more innovative and efficient financial solutions.

Impact, Future Implications, and Achievements

Mifiel’s integration of digital promissory notes on the Liquid Network represents more than a mere financial innovation but potentially a pivotal shift in the approach to deploying and raising productive capital in emerging markets. The initiative's long-term impact and potential achievements stretch far beyond its current success, primarily in terms of: 

Transforming Liquidity Access: Promising to fundamentally alter liquidity access and management in Mexico and Latin America, Mifiel’s solution offers businesses an efficient, cost-effective alternative to high-interest domestic loans at a time when companies are simultaneously witnessing a sharp pullback in terms of venture funding. 

Enhancing Efficiency & Cost Savings: The digitization and tokenization of promissory notes on Liquid streamlines financial processes, with participating NBFIs reporting an average saving of around 70% on expenses related to handling, processing and transporting physical notes. 

Expanding Market Opportunities: Addressing key market gaps, Mifiel's solution is helping to facilitate connections between NBFIs and international lenders and vice versa through a secure, transparent and compliant platform. It is an advance that could prove especially useful in regions where traditional financial systems often restrict business growth and investment potential, marking a significant step forward in broadening financial inclusivity. Looking ahead, Mifiel is currently in advanced discussions with at least one jurisdiction beyond Mexico as it explores opportunities to enhance the liquidity and accessibility of tokenized promissory notes further still by facilitating their trade on secondary markets. 

Legal Framework Adaptability: A critical aspect of Mifiel’s success lies in its compatibility with Mexico’s legal environment, where there is no mandated repository for promissory notes and no KYC requirements for trading them. It is, therefore, a model that can be replicated in similar jurisdictions, both within and beyond Latin America.

Conclusion 

Mifiel’s choice of the Liquid Network to digitize promissory notes in Mexico represents not only a significant development in terms of financial technology innovation but also in addressing real-world economic challenges, both in Latin America and other emerging markets. 

Looking ahead, Mifiel has ambitious plans for 2024 and beyond. The company aims to continue its trailblazing journey by issuing more promissory notes on the Liquid platform. Additionally, it is engaged in ongoing discussions with global lenders and new potential issuers across the financial sector in Mexico, as well as at least one other notable Latin American jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the Liquid Network’s combination of fast, low-cost and confidential yet auditable transactions clearly highlights its immense potential as a versatile and secure platform for the tokenization of a variety of digital assets and financial services extending far beyond promissory notes. Such versatility is especially suited to financial institutions seeking to harness the advantages of blockchain technology in a compliant and robust environment. Authorities in emerging markets looking to modernize their financial systems can also draw inspiration from Mifiel’s example. This case study shows that traditional financial instruments can be revitalized with the right technology and strategic implementation, paving the way for greater economic inclusion, growth, and stability.

We encourage anyone interested in exploring the full potential of the Liquid Network to reach out for a one-on-one discussion or visit http://www.liquid.net.